Knowledge and attitudes about abortion among undergraduate students

Résumé 0

"Background: This study examined attitudes towards and knowledge about abortion among undergraduate students doing eleven different subjects. The differences in attitudes and knowledge about abortion according to gender, religious and political af fi liation, religiosity, sexual orientation, number of sex partners and previous sexual experience were also considered. Method: 1,025 undergraduate students (58.34% women and 41.66% men; mean age 20.18) completed the following instruments: an adaptation of the Abortion Attitudes Scale by Hill, and an adaptation of Abortion Knowledge Test by Esposito and Basow. Results: With attitudes ranging from 0 to 100, medicine, psychology and nursing students were in the anti-abortion range (55.93, 54.19 and 53.62, respectively) while history, philology and physics students were in the pro-abortion rights range (48.44, 48.49 and 50.12, respectively). Law, medicine and nursing students showed greater theoretical knowledge about abortion, while physics, engineering and philology students proved to be the least knowledgeable. Conclusions: Differences were found in students’ attitudes towards abortion and in knowledge about abortion depending on their degree subject. As in previous reports, differences were found in students ́ attitudes towards abortion which re fl ected differences in religious af fi liation, religiosity, political af fi liation, and previous sexual experience."