Cutler published in Women’s Health Issues

UW Ob-Gyn Assistant Professor Abigail Cutler, MD, of the Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, published a randomized trial in Women’s Health Issues.

In “The Impact of First-Person Abortion Stories on Community-Level Abortion Stigma: A Randomized Trial”, Cutler and co-authors randomized participants to view either three video stories about someone’s abortion experience, or three narrated nature videos. Before, immediately after, and three months after watching the videos, participants responded to a questionnaire based on three existing stigma scales: the Community Abortion Attitudes Scale, Reproductive Experiences and Events Scale, and Community Level Abortion Stigma Scale:

“Evidence-based stigma reduction interventions are crucial for reproductive rights and public health advocates who seek to sway public opinion on abortion-related policy, for abortion care providers who endeavor to decrease abortion stigma toward their patients and themselves, for individuals who seek abortion care, and for their loved ones and friends who help them to navigate that experience. Despite the growing popularity of abortion storytelling, this randomized trial does not offer evidence that sharing first-person abortion stories with the general public decreases community-level abortion stigma.”

Read the whole study, and its implications for policy and practice, here.