, which revoked a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, new research shows.
This could be due to a variety of factors, investigators led by Benjamin Thornburg, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, noted. These include fear about the imminent risk of being denied an abortion, uncertainty around future limitations on abortion and other related rights such as contraception, worry over the ability to receive lifesaving medical care during pregnancy, and a general sense of violation and powerlessness related to loss of the right to reproductive autonomy.
The study was published online on January 23, 2024, in JAMA.
Mental Health Harm
In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, removing federal protections for abortion rights. Thirteen states had “trigger laws” that immediately banned or severely restricted abortion — raising concerns this could negatively affect mental health.
The researchers used data from the Household Pulse Survey to estimate changes in anxiety and depression symptoms after vs before the Dobbs decision in nearly 160,000 adults living in 13 states with trigger laws compared with roughly 559,000 adults living in 37 states without trigger laws.
The mean age of respondents was 48 years, and 51% were women. Anxiety and depression symptoms were measured via the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4).
In trigger states, the mean PHQ-4 score at baseline (before Dobbs) was 3.51 (out of 12) and increased to 3.81 after the Dobbs decision. In nontrigger states, the mean PHQ-4 score at baseline was 3.31 and increased to 3.49 after Dobbs.
Living in a trigger state was associated with a small but statistically significant worsening (0.11-point; P < .001) in anxiety/depression symptoms following the Dobbs decision vs living in a nontrigger state, the investigators report.
Women aged 18-45 years faced greater worsening of anxiety and depression symptoms following Dobbs in trigger vs nontrigger states, whereas men of a similar age experienced minimal or negligible changes.
Implications for Care
In an accompanying editorial, Julie Steinberg, PhD, with University of Maryland in College Park, notes the study results provide “emerging evidence that at an individual level taking away reproductive autonomy (by not having legal access to an abortion) may increase symptoms of anxiety and depression in all people and particularly females of reproductive age.”
These results add to findings from two other studies that examined abortion restrictions and mental health outcomes. Both found that limiting access to abortion was associated with more mental health symptoms among females of reproductive age than among others,” Dr. Steinberg pointed out.
“Together these findings highlight the need for clinicians who practice in states where abortion is banned to be aware that female patients of reproductive age may be experiencing significantly more distress than before the Dobbs decision,” Dr. Steinberg added.
The study received no specific funding. The authors had no relevant conflicts of interest. Dr. Steinberg reported serving as a paid expert scientist on abortion and mental health in seven cases challenging abortion policies.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.