Article Text
Abstract
Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, the British governments issued temporary approvals enabling the use of both medical abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, at home. This permitted the introduction of a fully telemedical model of abortion care with consultations taking place via telephone or video call and medications delivered to women’s homes. The decision was taken by the governments in England and Wales to continue this model of care beyond the original end date of April 2022, while at time of writing the approval in Scotland remains under consultation.
Methods We interviewed 30 women who had undergone an abortion in England, Scotland or Wales between August and December 2021. We explored their views on the changes in abortion service configuration during the pandemic and whether abortion via telemedicine and use of abortion medications at home should continue.
Results Support for continuation of the permission to use mifepristone and misoprostol at home was overwhelmingly positive. Reasons cited included convenience, comfort, reduced stigma, privacy and respect for autonomy. A telemedical model was also highly regarded for similar reasons, but for some its necessity was linked to safety measures during the pandemic, and an option to have an in-person interaction with a health professional at some point in the care pathway was endorsed.
Conclusions The approval to use abortion pills at home via telemedicine is supported by women having abortions in Britain. The voices of patients are essential to shaping acceptable and appropriate abortion service provision.
- COVID-19
- abortion, induced
Data availability statement
Data is not available, it is confidential and subject to ethical approvals.
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Data availability statement
Data is not available, it is confidential and subject to ethical approvals.
Footnotes
Twitter @lewandowska_mar
Collaborators SACHA Study: Annette Aronsson, Paula Baraitser, Caroline Free, Louise Keogh, Clare Murphy, Wendy Norman, Jill Shawe, Sally Sheldon and Geoffrey Wong. www.lshtm.ac.uk/sacha.
Contributors RSF, PAL and KW conceptualised the study. All authors contributed to the study design and protocol. RM coordinated the ethical approvals. ML organised participant recruitment. PAL and SC facilitated fieldwork. ML, NS and RSF conducted recruitment. ML, RM, JR, NS, RHS and KW conducted the interviews. All authors participated in the data analysis and coding. PAL and KW wrote the first draft. All authors contributed to the final manuscript. This article reports on data collected as part of the SACHA Study: Shaping Abortion for Change, funded by the National Institute of Health Research (www.lshtm.ac.uk/sacha). Collaborators of the SACHA Study provided feedback on all stages of the study.
Funding The study was funded by the National Institute of Health Research (Award ID: NIHR129529).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.