Abortion caseload at a tertiary-care hospital in Nepal

Rafat Hussain, University of New England, Australia
Kiran Regmi, University of New England, Australia

Hospital records of all abortion cases admitted to Bharatpur Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in Chitwan district of Nepal were reviewed from late-2002 to mid-2003. Additionally cases with a high suspicion of induced abortion were interviewed. There were 137 cases of abortion during the study period. Mean age was 25.2 years (SD 6.1 years), and 98% were currently married. Provisional diagnosis (on admission) was recorded for over 80% and included incomplete abortion (61.3%), threatened abortion (13.9%), missed abortion (5.1%) and septic abortion (2.2%). Despite a high index of suspicion for induced abortion in nearly 20% (n=27) of the sample, definitive information was available for only two cases (1.5%). Interviews were declined by 6.5% (n=9) and in remaining cases interviews were not possible due to same day discharge (n=10) or linguistic barriers (n=6). Methodological issues in researching induced abortion will be discussed.