Abstract
Introduction
Despite playing an integral part in sexual and reproductive health care, including
abortion care, nurses are rarely the focus of research regarding their attitudes about
abortion.
Methods
A sample of 1,820 nurse members of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and
Neonatal Nurses were surveyed about their demographic and professional backgrounds,
religious beliefs, and abortion attitudes. Scores on the Abortion Attitudes Scale
were analyzed categorically and trichotomized in multinomial regression analyses.
Results
Almost one-third of the sample (32%) had moderately proabortion attitudes, 29% were
unsure, 16% had strongly proabortion attitudes, 13% had strongly antiabortion attitudes,
and 11% had moderately antiabortion attitudes. Using trichotomized Abortion Attitudes
Scale scores (proabortion, unsure, antiabortion), adjusted regression models showed
that the following characteristics were associated with proabortion attitudes: being
non-Christian, residence in the North or West, having no children, and having had
an abortion.
Conclusions
Understanding nurses’ attitudes toward abortion, and what characteristics may influence
their attitudes, is critical to sustaining nursing care for patients considering and
seeking abortion. Additionally, because personal characteristics were associated with
antiabortion attitudes, it is likely that personal experiences may influence attitudes
toward abortion. A large percentage of nurses held attitudes that placed them in the
“unsure” category. Given the current ubiquitous polarization of abortion discourse,
this finding indicates that the binary narrative of this topic is less pervasive than
expected, which lends itself to an emphasis on empathetic and compassionate nursing
care.
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Biography
Amy Alspaugh, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Nursing, University of Tennessee, Knoxville College of Nursing and a Certified Nurse-Midwife. Her research interests include reproductive health in people with the capacity for pregnancy age 35 and older, abortion in nursing, and the midwifery workforce.
Biography
Renee Mehra, PhD, is a current postdoctoral scholar at UCSF. Her research explores how social and psychosocial factors influence inequities in maternal and infant health.
Biography
Kate Coleman-Minahan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Colorado and a family nurse practitioner. Her research interests include sexual and reproductive health in low-income, minority, and immigrant young women and abortion knowledge and attitudes in advanced practice clinicians.
Biography
Thomas J. Hoffmann, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Epidemiology & Biostatistics Department at UCSF. His research interests include applied work encompassing a wide variety of genetic association studies related to human health, including work on age-related hearing impairment, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Biography
Candace W. Burton, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the biobehavioral and biological health effects of intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
Biography
Meghan Eagen-Trokko, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Director of Nursing at UW Bothell. Her scholarship uses a feminist perspective to explore how social structures/norms and life events intersect to affect women's health outcomes.
Biography
Toni M. Bond, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at UCSF. Her work is advancing the field of reproductive justice through her qualitative research on the impact of oppressive theological doctrines in the reproductive and sexual lives of Black women.
Biography
Linda S. Franck, PhD, holds the Jack and Elaine Koehn Endowed Chair in Pediatric Nursing at UCSF. She has clinical, research, and academic mentorship experience in maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health care, with a particular emphasis on improving patient and family partnered health care.
Biography
Liz Cretti Olseon, MPH, MSN, is an Adult Primary Care Nurse Practitioner and currently works clinically at UC Davis. Her clinical expertise includes contraception, mental heath, and primary care and she has a background in public health.
Biography
Nikki Lanshaw, MPH, is the Project Director for the ACTIONS program. She has worked in administrative, communications, and policy analyst roles throughout her career and is interested in integrating health equity and social justice into health policy proposals and research.
Biography
Jacqueline D. Rychnovsky, PhD, is a board certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and United States Navy Commanding Officer with the Navy Medicine Research & Development Enterprise at the Naval Medical Research Center. Her research involves postpartum fatigue and women's health for active duty military.
Biography
Monica R. McLemore, PhD, is Associate Professor and co-director, ACTIONS program, UCSF. Her research focuses on the health, well-being, and livelihood of low-income and women of color. She works across the reproductive spectrum: abortion, birth, cancer risk, contraception/family planning, healthy sexuality, pleasure, and consent.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 26, 2021
Accepted:
October 25,
2021
Received in revised form:
October 17,
2021
Received:
March 28,
2021
Footnotes
Funding Statement: Supported by the ACTIONS Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing, United States.
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, George Washington University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
