title: The influence of socio-demographic factors on miscarriage incidence among Italian and immigrant women: a critical analysis from Italy.
abstract: Miscarriage is one of the most relevant adverse events in women's reproductive life. The purpose of the study was to describe miscarriage trend in Italy during the last years among Italian and immigrant women, to compare miscarriage rates of the two groups and to evaluate the effect of age, nationality and educational level on the incidence of having a miscarriage. Then, a brief critical review of other miscarriage risk factors was performed. This study is based on ISTAT database. All data were analyzed through the statistical software SPSS and the following analytical techniques were used: multivariate logistic regression, factorial analysis of variance and Chi square test. Immigrant miscarriage rates resulted higher than Italian ones and they decreased from 2003 to 2009 unlike Italian ones, which remained unchanged. The effect of maternal age on the miscarriage incidence resulted different, depending on the nationality; for Italian women it increased with increasing of age and for immigrant women the opposite trend was found. Moreover, miscarriage incidence resulted significantly different depending on the maternal educational level. Whereas immigrant women considered did not belong to the same ethnic group, biological or genetic factors underlying these differences were excluded and a socioeconomic explanation was provided. Finally, in order to provide more complete information, other miscarriage risk factors were discussed through a brief review of the literature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics, Gynecological and Urological Sciences, Sant'Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University of Rome, Via di Grottarossa 1035-1039, 00189, Rome, Italy, donatella.caserta@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Donatella
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Caserta
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ralli
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Matteucci
authors.forename: Giulia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bordi
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Soave
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marci
authors.forename: Flaviano
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Moscarini
mesh_terms: D000022:Abortion, Spontaneous / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*; D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008423:Maternal Age; D011247:Pregnancy