Preabortion ultrasound – a patient perspective

To explore women's perception of the need for an ultrasound scan before medical abortion provided by telemedicine services.We have analysed women's requests for medical abortion through the website www.womenonweb.org from the 1st of January 2019 to the 5th of October 2020. Before receiving abortion drugs for self-managed medical abortion, women received online counselling and were asked to complete an online survey on pre-abortion ultrasound scan and the reasons for having or not having one. The initial dataset included 62641 entries from 207 countries. Each entry corresponded to a person's request for medical abortion. Women reported only one or multiple reasons for not having a pre-abortion ultrasound scan.Among 59648 women requesting a medical abortion, 45653 (76,54%) did not have any pre-abortion ultrasound scan and specified a reason for that. The countries with the highest rates of women not having a pre-abortion ultrasound scan were Thailand, Poland, Northern Ireland, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, and Brazil. The main reasons for not having a pre-abortion ultrasound scan were being confident regarding pregnancy length; and thus, no need for a scan stated by 10910/34390 women (31.7%), lack of resources stated by 10589/34390 women (30.8%), and privacy issues stated by 6472/34390 women (18.8%).Most women opting for medical abortion through telemedicine did not undergo a pre-abortion ultrasound scan. The main reason stated was that women did not find it necessary, lack of resources and privacy issues.Women requesting medical abortion through telemedicine were asked about their views and experiences regarding pre-abortion ultrasound scan. Of 59648 women included in the study, 76% did not have a scan. The main reason stated was that women did not find it necessary, lack of resources and privacy issues.