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AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Mar 29, 2006
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November 2006, Vol 96, No. 11 | American Journal of Public Health 1927-1933
© 2006 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.071720

HEALTH POLICY AND ETHICS

Patient Privacy and Conflicting Legal and Ethical Obligations in El Salvador: Reporting of Unlawful Abortions

Heathe Luz McNaughton, MPH, Ellen M.H. Mitchell, PhD, Emilia G. Hernandez, MD, Karen Padilla, MD and Marta Maria Blandon, MsC

Heathe Luz McNaughton is with Ipas Central America, Managua, Nicaragua, and with the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ellen M. H. Mitchell is with Ipas, Chapel Hill. Emilia G. Hernandez is with the Hospital Primero de Mayo, San Salvador, El Salvador. Karen Padilla and Marta María Blandon are with Ipas Central America, Managua.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Ellen M. H. Mitchell, PhD, Ipas, 300 Market St, Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27510 (e-mail: mitchelle{at}ipas.org).

Postabortion care providers who breach patient confidentiality endanger women’s health and violate ethics. A 1998 abortion ban in El Salvador likely spurred an increase in the number of women investigated, because many women were reported to legal authorities by health care providers.

Having analyzed safeguards of confidentiality in laws and ethical guidelines, we obtained information from legal records on women prosecuted from 1998 to 2003 and identified factors that may lead to reporting through a survey of obstetrician-gynecologists (n=110).

Although ethical and human rights standards oblige providers to respect patients’ privacy, 80% of obstetrician-gynecologists mistakenly believed reporting was required. Most respondents (86%) knew that women delay seeking care because of fear of prosecution, yet a majority (56%) participated in notification of legal authorities.






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Copyright © 2006 by the American Public Health Association