Knowledge and practice regarding safe abortion among married women of reproductive age group (15-49) in Rajbanshi community.

Thesis Report.

ABSTRACT:

Background: Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for terminating a pregnancy performed by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment not in conformity with minimal medical standards, or both.

Research Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was done in Rajbansi community of Jhapa District.. Convenient sampling was done and Semi-structured questionnaire were interviewed in 420 numbers of Married women of reproductive age. Data was analyzed and interpreted using SPSS version 16.0 through percentage and numbers. Similarly, Chi-square and Fishers Exact test were used to identify the strength of association.

Findings: The findings of the researcher's study shows that among 420 respondents, majority are of age between19-29 i.e. 36.4%, similarly 36.2% belongs to 30-40 and 27.4% are of 41-51 age groups. All the respondents are hindu and mostly engaged in agriculture i.e. 50.7%,futhermore 20%,21.4%,7.9% were engaged in Foreign Employment, Daily Wages labor and Business respectively. More than half of population i.e.,60.2% are literate and 39.8% are illiterate.68.6% repondents are living in extended/joint family and 39.8 are in nuclear family. About half i.e. 46.2% have monthly income of amount less than Rs. 5000 ,32.6% have amount ranging between Rs. 5000-10,000 and only 21.2% of respondents have income more than Rs. 10000. Majority of respondents 33.1% have heard about the safe abortion through peer, similarly only 8.6% know about the legalization of abortion service in Nepal. 63.3% of respondents do not have knowledge about the complications of unsafe abortion. Those respondents who had knowledge (36.7%) stated hemorrhage as the major complication of unsafe abortion. Overall Knowledge was found to be poor among 92.4% of respondents, and only 7.6% had good knowledge about safe abortion. Among 420 respondents, only 44 numbers of respondents have practiced abortion of which 2 had their abortion itself at home with the help of traditional healer. Majority of respondents i.e. 59% had their abortion at private hospital. Most of the respondents reported to have faced hemorrhage as the major complication. 82.1% respondents reported to have distance of health facility less than 30 minutes from home and rest of them had distance more than 30 minutes. 80.96% of respondents mentioned to have supportive health personnel in health facility. The study shows that 75% of those who had abortion were medical abortion, of which most of them had self-administered and faced to have hemorrhage as major complication.

Conclusion: Despite the legalization of abortion service, unsafe abortion is still in Practice. Education, Occupation and type of family were found to be associated with knowledge of safe abortion. Knowledge and practice were significantly associated.

Key Words: Safe abortion, Unsafe Abortion, Access, Health Facility, Women of Reproductive age