Risk factors for tubal sterilization regret, detectable before surgery

Brazil has one of the highest prevalence rates of female surgical sterilization in the world. At the same time there is an increased demand for sterilization reversal. In order to understand which women tend to later request reversal of the procedure, a case-control study was carried out comparing 216 women who requested reversal with sterilized women who did not, paired by year of surgery. The relative risk of requesting reversal for women sterilized before age 25 was 18 times that of women sterilized after age 29. The elevated risk remained even after controlling for a number of variables present at the time of surgery. Multiple regression analysis showed that request for reversal was associated with younger age, less information about the procedure, and fewer contraceptive methods known before sterilization. These results support the recommendation that women should be fully informed about the tubal ligation procedure and have access to other contraceptive options before being sterilized.