Commentary on Abortion Studies of Steinberg and Finer (Social Science & Medicine 2011; 72:72-82) and Coleman (Journal of Psychiatric Research 2009;43:770-6 & Journal of Psychiatric Research 2011;45:1133-4)

摘要

A letter from Steinberg and Finer and a response by Coleman are published in this issue regarding an earlier article published in this journal by Coleman et al. (2009), a replication subsequently published by Steinberg and Finer (2011), and a corrigendum written by Coleman et al. (2011) This exchange highlights key issues in a debate regarding the potential psychiatric effects of induced abortions. As the debate involved competing secondary analyses of the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), the Editor (AFS) asked Ron Kessler, the Principal Investigator of the NCS, to assist in ferreting out the issues here. Based on our joint review and discussion of the debate, we conclude that the Steinberg-Finer critique has considerable merit and that the Coleman et al. (2009) analysis does not support their assertions that abortions led to psychopa-thology in the NCS data. The rationale for this conclusion is presented below.