Abstract
Recently there has been much interest in an accurate evaluation of the consequences of induced abortion in Jappan which has a history of more than twenty years of legal abortion.
Most of the reports have been concerned mainly with clinical complications during the first 4-6 weeks after treatment or hospital based surveys only of women who had induced abortions.
The author describes a feasible method of determining the prevalence of induced abortion, its relation to the outcome of pregnancy and the characteristics of women who use it.
Questionnaires were sent to 2, 825 women and 650 women were interviewed in a cross-sectional survey representing all women aged 20-44 residing in Kochi Prefectre.
(1) Fewer induced abortions were reported by intervied than by self-administrated recall questionnaires.
(2) There were some difficulties in obtaining information from doctors.
(3) About half of the married women had had one or more induced abortions and the prevalence in each geographic area was almost the same.
(4) Women who had had abortions were not significantly different from those who had not in regard to subsequent pregnancies.
(5) Induced abortion was often resorted to because of inability to use contraceptive methods effectively.
