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A Narrative Intervention to Decrease Abortion Stigma

NCT03865199 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 215

Last updated 2020-04-20

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Abortion stigma is pervasive in the United States. It operates across multiple levels, including the individual, community, and structural. While abortion itself does not cause mental health problems, due to stigma, women who undergo abortion are at risk of suffering negative psychological responses including thought suppression and isolation, which can result in psychological distress. Few intervention studies have addressed abortion stigma. Research in other disciplines, in particular mental health, has demonstrated the importance of self-validation in improved coping. Drawing from psychologists' use of writing in cognitive therapy and the discipline of Narrative Medicine's emphasis on narrative as a mechanism of healing, the proposed study attempts to test a novel intervention to reduce individual level abortion stigma. The study will be a randomized controlled trial evaluating a narrative intervention to reduce individual level abortion stigma. The principal research question is: can a narrative intervention that aims to positively frame the abortion experience decrease individual level abortion stigma? An additional research question is: will women who take part in a narrative intervention to reduce abortion stigma have improved psychological responses to the abortion? Women in the intervention group will view a digital story on a tablet intending to provide education and normalization and then respond to a writing prompt aimed at cognitive restructuring. The control group will receive care as usual.

Conditions

  • Stigma, Social

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Narrative Intervention

Participants in the intervention group will first view a digital story on a tablet with headphones that will combine a fictional patient's abortion story with basic medical and social facts regarding abortion. After viewing the narrative, participants will be asked to write a narrative either on a tablet provided or on paper with the prompt: "Patients have different thoughts and feelings about their experiences when they have this procedure. Tell a story (about yourself or someone else, real or imaginary) that might help another patient feel supported."

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Planned Parenthood Federation of America

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of Chicago

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Melissa Gilliam, MD · University of Chicago

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
FEMALE
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-06-16
Primary Completion
2020-02-05
Completion
2020-02-05

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03865199 on ClinicalTrials.gov