Abstract
Introduction
Telephone follow-up with a self-performed low-sensitivity urine pregnancy (LSUP) test
was introduced at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Scotland, as an alternative to
routine ultrasonography for confirming successful abortion at 2 weeks following early
medical abortion (<9 weeks' gestation). Women who screened ���positive��� at telephone follow-up on the
basis of ongoing pregnancy symptoms, scant bleeding or LSUP test result subsequently
attended the clinic for a confirmatory ultrasound.
Methods
A service evaluation was conducted of the first 8 months of telephone follow-up consisting
of a review of the numbers choosing this method of follow-up, the proportion successfully
contacted and the efficacy for detecting ongoing pregnancies. In the last 3 months
of the study, women were surveyed about their satisfaction with this method of follow-up.
Results
Opting for telephone follow-up were 476 out of 619 women (77%). Four women (1%) attended
the clinic before telephone follow-up because of pain or bleeding. A total of 410
(87%) of the remaining 472 women were successfully contacted by telephone. Sixty women
(15%) screened ���positive���, three of whom had ongoing pregnancies, and one woman
falsely screened ���negative���. The sensitivity of the telephone follow-up was 75%
[95% confidence interval (CI) 30.1���95.4], and specificity was 86% (95% CI 82.2���89).
The negative predictive value was 99.7% (95% CI 98.4���99.9), and positive predictive
value was 5% (95% CI 1.7���13.7). All women surveyed (n=75) would recommend telephone follow-up to a friend.
Conclusion
A telephone follow-up and an LSUP test at 2 weeks are effective for detecting ongoing
pregnancy, have good follow-up rates and are popular choices for women.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 09, 2012
Accepted:
November 19,
2011
Received in revised form:
November 17,
2011
Received:
June 21,
2011
Footnotes
���Funding: This work was conducted as part of a series of initiatives aimed to improve the patient journey through abortion, funded by the Scottish Government.
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
