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Background: The assessment of treatment success in clinical trials when multiple (repeated) doses (courses) are involved is quite common, for example, in the case of infertility treatment with assisted reproductive technology (ART), and medical abortion using misoprostol alone or in combination with mifepristone. Under these or similar circumstances, most researchers assess success using binomial proportions after a certain number of consecutive doses, and some have used survival analysis. In this paper we discuss the main problems in using binomial proportions to summarize (the overall) efficacy after two or more consecutive doses of the relevant treatment, particularly for the case of misoprostol in medical abortion studies. We later discuss why the survival analysis is best suited under these circumstances, and illustrate this by using simulated data., Methods: The formulas required for the binomial proportion and survival analysis (without and with competing risks) approaches are summarized and analytically compared. Additionally, numerical results are computed and compared between the two approaches, for several theoretical scenarios., Results: The main conceptual limitations of the binomial proportion approach are identified and discussed, caused mainly by the presence of censoring and competing risks, and it is demonstrated how survival analysis can solve these problems. In general, the binomial proportion approach tends to underestimate the "real" success rate, and tends to overestimate the corresponding standard error., Conclusions: Depending on the rates of censored observations or competing events between repeated doses of the treatment, the bias of the binomial proportion approach as compared to the survival analysis approaches varies; however, the use of the binomial approach is unjustified as the survival analysis options are well known and available in multiple statistical packages. Our conclusions also apply to other situations where success is estimated after multiple (repeated) doses (courses) of the treatment.

A nationally representative survey was conducted among 3000 Catholics in Mexico during 2009 and 2010. Respondents were presented with a hypothetical situation about a young woman who decided to have an abortion and were asked their personal opinion of her. On the basis of a stigma index, it was found that the majority (61%) had stigmatizing attitudes about abortion; however, 81% believed that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. Respondents were significantly more likely to stigmatize abortion if they disagreed with the Mexico City law legalizing the procedure (odds ratio 1.66; 95% CI, 1.30-2.11) and believed that abortion should be prohibited in all cases (odds ratio 3.13; 95% CI, 2.28-4.30). Such stigma can lead women to seek unsafe abortions to avoid judgment by society., (Copyright © 2012 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study analyzes the use patterns of , an English-, Spanish-, Arabic- and French-language web site dedicated to three methods of early pregnancy termination: mifepristone/misoprostol, methotrexate/misoprostol and misoprostol alone., Methods: This study examines both the overall and language-specific use patterns of the web site from October 1, 2004, through September 30, 2005. Data were recorded using Wusage 8.0, a web site statistics program., Results: Over the 12-month study period, received more than 78,000 visits and nearly 240,000 page requests. The English version is the most popular version of the web site (accessed in 46.1% of all visits), followed by the Spanish (35.0%), Arabic (10.4%) and French (8.8%) versions. Spanish-language visits are nearly three times as likely to access the misoprostol-only section of the web site when compared with the other language versions (p<.001)., Conclusion: This study confirms that multilingual, medically accurate online resources have the potential to expand information about medication abortion to both providers and women considering the option of abortion in diverse communities. Analysis of the language-specific use patterns highlights the different priorities of various types of web site visitors and suggests future priorities for educational outreach, collaboration and research.