TY - JOUR T1 - A trans-national examination of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on abortion requests through a telemedicine service JF - BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health JO - BMJ Sex Reprod Health SP - 179 LP - 184 DO - 10.1136/bmjsrh-2021-201159 VL - 48 IS - 3 AU - Liƫn Trudi van Ooijen AU - Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson AU - Mitzi Waltz AU - Rebecca Gomperts Y1 - 2022/07/01 UR - http://jfprhc.bmj.com/content/48/3/179.abstract N2 - Background The COVID-19 pandemic is limiting access to reproductive healthcare worldwide. Substantial research gaps remain regarding the impact of the pandemic on access to abortion care.Methods We performed a cohort analysis of abortion requests made through the telemedicine abortion service Women on Web (WoW) between 18 March 2020 and 4 May 2020. We used binary logistic regression analyses to test the association between COVID-19 as a reason for the help request and reporting having had an ultrasound to determine gestation and/or use of contraception. A subanalysis of Italy, Argentina, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was executed to explore differences between countries.Results Of requests made during the study period, 43.5% (n=1972) were COVID-19-related. A negative association was found with having had an ultrasound to determine gestation length and COVID-19-related requests. Italy had the highest percentage (66.5%, n=117) of COVID-19-related requests in the subanalysis, followed by Argentina (55.3%, n=68), Malaysia (51.9%, n=41) and the UAE (44.4%, n=75).Conclusions Almost half the women and pregnant people having an abortion through WoW reported experiencing obstacles to abortion care because of COVID-19. Abortion guidelines should be updated to permit abortion services via telemedicine. This is especially urgent during the ongoing pandemic.Data are available upon reasonable request. Anonymised data may be available upon reasonable request to Women on Web. ER -