Intended pregnancies and unintended pregnancies: distinct categories or opposite ends of a continuum?

Fam Plann Perspect. 1999 Sep-Oct;31(5):251-2.

Abstract

PIP: This article examines the entity of intended and unintended pregnancy. Results provided a strong evidence of bias. The reason for this bias may be due to an increased pressure for women to give a socially desirable response. This problem suggested three potential courses of action, such as: a combination of traditional cross-sectional studies with intendedness and wantedness values, improvement of retrospective measurements, and development of model predictors of reporting bias. With regards to the affective dimension, the positive and negative extremes may not be located on the same continuum; that is, positive and negative feelings coexist, hence producing ambivalence. Consequently, researchers should continue their efforts to expand approaches to these concepts and improve the ways of measuring them in future studies.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Bias
  • Emotions*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Pregnancy / psychology*
  • Research Design
  • Retrospective Studies