A Narrative Intervention to Decrease Abortion Stigma

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Stigma, Social

In brief

Abortion stigma is pervasive in the United States. It operates across multiple levels, including the individual, community, and structural. While abortion itself does not cause mental health problems, due to stigma, women who undergo abortion are at risk of suffering negative psychological responses including thought suppression and isolation, which can result in psychological distress. Few intervention studies have addressed abortion stigma. Research in other disciplines, in particular mental health, has demonstrated the importance of self-validation in improved coping. Drawing from psychologists' use of writing in cognitive therapy and the discipline of Narrative Medicine's emphasis on narrative as a mechanism of healing, the proposed study attempts to test a novel intervention to reduce individual level abortion stigma. The study will be a randomized controlled trial evaluating a narrative intervention to reduce individual level abortion stigma. The principal research question is: can a narrative intervention that aims to positively frame the abortion experience decrease individual level abortion stigma? An additional research question is: will women who take part in a narrative intervention to reduce abortion stigma have improved psychological responses to the abortion? Women in the intervention group will view a digital story on a tablet intending to provide education and normalization and then respond to a writing prompt aimed at cognitive restructuring. The control group will receive care as usual.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT03865199

Run by

University of Chicago

People needed

215

Starts

2019-06-16

Expected to finish

2020-02-05

Last updated by the study team

2020-04-20

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: female. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Women aged 18 or older undergoing medical or surgical abortion at Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL) will be eligible for inclusion. Inclusion criteria include having an intrauterine pregnancy, having a smart phone to be able to follow-up by text message 2-4 weeks after the clinic appointment, having no contraindications to an outpatient medication or surgical abortion that same day, and not meeting any exclusion criteria.

You may not qualify if…

• Exclusion criteria will include non-English speaking, no working telephone, and less than 5th grade education level.

Where it is running

• Planned Parenthood — Chicago, Illinois, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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