Women’s Perceptions of the Quality of Public Sector Abortion Services in Mexico City

Davida Becker, University of California, San Francisco
Claudia Díaz-Olavarrieta, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (INSP)
Clara Juarez, Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica
Sandra García, Population Council
Patricio Sanhueza, Ministry of Health, Mexico
Cynthia C. Harper, University of California, San Francisco

In a historic vote on April 24, 2007, the Mexico City legislature decriminalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. To date, there has been limited research on clients’ experiences with the abortion services now legally provided by the government. From August to December 2009, we are conducting surveys with 402 women, and in-depth interviews with 30 women seeking abortion care at public sector sites (general hospital, maternity hospital, and primary health center), to investigate women’s perceptions of the quality of the services. Our survey includes measures of eleven domains of service quality. We will present descriptive findings and will use ordinal regression to test whether overall ratings of services are associated with client socio-demographic characteristics, site type, or visit-specific factors. Our study will contribute information relevant to the conceptualization and measurement of abortion service quality, including important domains to measure in future studies of abortion service quality.