IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v64y2007i9p1812-1822.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Real life is different: A qualitative study of why women delay abortion until the second trimester in Vietnam

Author

Listed:
  • Gallo, Maria F.
  • Nghia, Nguyen C.

Abstract

Although legal and safe-induced abortion services are available on request in Vietnam, second-trimester abortion still occurs. Given the increased risks and higher costs associated with later-term abortions, we conducted a qualitative study to understand the determinants of delaying abortion until the second trimester. We used purposive sampling to conduct semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 60 women aged 14-47 receiving an abortion at 13-24 weeks of gestation in 5 health facilities in 3 provinces in Vietnam. We also interviewed 6 providers from the study facilities. Three broad categories for factors influencing delays in obtaining abortions emerged: most women failed to recognize their pregnancy during the first trimester; women described structural barriers to accessing services earlier; and some women either needed time to make a decision or only decided to abort after other events had transpired. A richer understanding of the factors that prevent women from obtaining an abortion during the first trimester could be useful for informing interventions that support women in receiving care earlier during their pregnancies.

Suggested Citation

  • Gallo, Maria F. & Nghia, Nguyen C., 2007. "Real life is different: A qualitative study of why women delay abortion until the second trimester in Vietnam," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(9), pages 1812-1822, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:9:p:1812-1822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(07)00059-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gammeltoft, Tine, 2002. "Seeking trust and transcendence: sexual risk-taking among Vietnamese youth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 483-496, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ernestina Coast & Samantha R Lattof & Yana van der Meulen Rodgers & Brittany Moore & Cheri Poss, 2021. "The microeconomics of abortion: A scoping review and analysis of the economic consequences for abortion care-seekers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-21, June.
    2. Samantha R Lattof & Ernestina Coast & Yana van der Meulen Rodgers & Brittany Moore & Cheri Poss, 2020. "The mesoeconomics of abortion: A scoping review and analysis of the economic effects of abortion on health systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-25, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:9:p:1812-1822. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.