A systematic review on the family planning and reproductive healthcare aspects of post-abortion care in China

Abstract

Induced abortion is a remedial measure following contraceptive failure and accidental pregnancy. The annual global abortionwas43 million times and China reached 8.3 million times in 2003. Post-abortion care (PAC) refers to services provided for women after abortion, which is an approach for reducing abortion and their related complications and improving women’s reproductive health.

This project aims to review post-abortion care (PAC) in China specifically focuses on the family planning and reproductive health aspects. The objectives are to assess the need for integrating PAC, the impact of PAC, and to explore the PAC for women in China related to family planning and reproductive health. Two electronic databases Pubmed and National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were systematically searched by key words. 18 articles that met the criteria were reviewed. In China, the main abortion reasons were not using contraceptive methods ranged from 42.6% to 66.7% and contraceptive failure ranged from 30.5% to 55.6%. The rate of repeated abortions ranged from 28.9% to 64.4%, and the number of abortions undergone was between one and nine. And the knowledge of reproductive health among Chinese females is generally poor. Besides, PAC can reduce the repeated abortion rate and incidence of abortion complications effectively. PAC in China was under-development although females undergoing abortion demand PAC strongly.