Abortion is a common gynecological procedure and plays a central role in women’s health and autonomy. To maintain accessibility to abortion, it is important that sufficient obstetrics and gynecology (Ob/Gyn) residents intend to provide abortion care after residency. This study identifies factors that influence a resident’s intention to provide abortions (IPA) post-training.
A multiple-choice survey, addressing demographics, religious background, residency program metrics, training experience and intent to provide abortions (IPA), was answered by 409 Ob/Gyn residents. Chi-square test was performed on descriptive statistics and continuous variables were tested with ANOVA with p<0.05 considered significant.
Residents with IPA were predominantly female (p = 0.001), training in the Northeast and West (p<0.001), identifying either as non-religious, agnostic/atheist or Jewish (p<0.01), not actively practicing their religion (p<0.001) and leaning democrats (p<0.002). Those with IPA were more likely to train at hospitals without religious affiliation (p<0.008), to train at a Ryan Program (p<0.001), to place strong emphasis on choosing a program with family planning training (p<0.001), to join programs where a significant portion of the faculty performs abortions (p<0.001) and to have completed a higher number of first trimester medical and surgical abortion procedures during the last six months of training (p<0.001).
These results suggest that factors influencing a physician’s intention to provide abortions are multifactorial, involving personal and program factors. A model predicting IPA is derived. To maximize IPA, residency programs can increase abortion volume, facilitate additional training and build a supportive faculty.

Copyright: © 2023 Kramer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.