[Ideal number of children and regret after tubal ligation in a cohort of women].
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the relationship between the ideal number of children (INC) and post tubal ligation regret.


METHODS
A nested case-control study was carried out with a total of 3878 women interviewed. Of these 1012 had been surgically sterilized at the time of the interview of the original study and as such comprise the sample of this study. These are constituted by women who stated that they would not undergo tubal ligation again and who regretted the procedure (103--10.8%) if they were to face the same circumstances. The Ideal Number of Children INC--was divided into two groups according to the relationship with the number of live births (LB): INC > LB and INC < LB. The proportion of women who regretted was calculated and the risk of regret estimated according to the relation INC/LB by means of Odds Ratios with the respective 95% confidence interval. Then the analysis was stratified according to control variables. Two multiple logistic regression models were developed in order to identify the independent risk factors associated with regret among women with INC>LB.


RESULTS
The independent risk factors identified for post tubal ligation regret are INC > LB (OR=12.7), for performance of tubal ligation with the intention of just waiting some time before having more children (OR=8.0) and for having had more than two deliveries at the time of sterilization (OR=2.4).


CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that a previous evaluation of the INC could help identify women with a higher risk for post ligation regret.
Carvalho
Luiz Eduardo Campos de
LE
Departamento de Tocoginecologia da Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da UNICAMP e Centro de Pesquisas em Saúde Reprodutiva de Campinas (CEMICAMP).
Cecatti
José Guilherme
JG
Osis
Maria José Duarte
MJ
Sousa
Maria Helena de
MH
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D004644:Emotions; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013246:Sterilization, Tubal / Q000523:psychology*