The impact of a liberalisation law on legally induced abortion hospitalisations

Internações por aborto no Brasil, 2008-2018: estudo ecológico de série temporal

Resumo Objetivo: Analisar a tendência temporal das internações por aborto no Brasil, de 2008 a 2018, segundo região e Unidades da Federação (UFs). Métodos: Estudo ecológico, com dados de internações por aborto de mulheres em idade fértil registrados no Sistema de Informações Hospitalares/Sistema Único de Saúde (SIH/SUS). As taxas foram calculadas segundo características da mulher; e a tendência, avaliada por regressão linear generalizada de Prais-Winsten. Resultados: As 2.258.104 internações por aborto representaram 5% de todas as internações de mulheres em idade fértil. Houve redução significativa, de 0,76 pontos percentuais ao ano, no período. Essa tendência ocorreu em 19 UFs brasileiras e em todas as regiões, exceto a Sul (estável). Houve redução significativa (p-valor<0,001) nas internações por aborto espontâneo e nas internações de mulheres de 20 a 39 anos. Conclusão: Observou-se tendência de redução das internações por aborto no país, com variações segundo características da mulher, UF e região de residência.

Impact of abortion law reforms on women's health services and outcomes: a systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND

A country's abortion law is a key component in determining the enabling environment for safe abortion. While restrictive abortion laws still prevail in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many countries have reformed their abortion laws, with the majority of them moving away from an absolute ban. However, the implications of these reforms on women's access to and use of health services, as well as their health outcomes, is uncertain. First, there are methodological challenges to the evaluation of abortion laws, since these changes are not exogenous. Second, extant evaluations may be limited in terms of their generalizability, given variation in reforms across the abortion legality spectrum and differences in levels of implementation and enforcement cross-nationally. This systematic review aims to address this gap. Our aim is to systematically collect, evaluate, and synthesize empirical research evidence concerning the impact of abortion law reforms on women's health services and outcomes in LMICs.

METHODS

We will conduct a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on changes in abortion laws and women's health services and outcomes in LMICs. We will search Medline, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases, as well as grey literature and reference lists of included studies for further relevant literature. As our goal is to draw inference on the impact of abortion law reforms, we will include quasi-experimental studies examining the impact of change in abortion laws on at least one of our outcomes of interest. We will assess the methodological quality of studies using the quasi-experimental study designs series checklist. Due to anticipated heterogeneity in policy changes, outcomes, and study designs, we will synthesize results through a narrative description.

DISCUSSION

This review will systematically appraise and synthesize the research evidence on the impact of abortion law reforms on women's health services and outcomes in LMICs. We will examine the effect of legislative reforms and investigate the conditions that might contribute to heterogeneous effects, including whether specific groups of women are differentially affected by abortion law reforms. We will discuss gaps and future directions for research. Findings from this review could provide evidence on emerging strategies to influence policy reforms, implement abortion services and scale up accessibility.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION

PROSPERO CRD42019126927.