Knowledge and Attitude on Legalization of Abortion among Undergraduate Students of Pokhara University

Introduction: Even after two decades of the legalization of abortion in Nepal, women still continue to have illegal, unsafe abortions. The aim of the study was to assess knowledge and attitude on the legalization of abortion among undergraduate students. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. Study setting was the School of Health and Allied Sciences, Pokhara University and study population included health science students. A proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select a total of 148 undergraduate students from different health science programs. Data was collected by using a self-administered questionnaire and was analyzed by using Epi data and SPSS version 16. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 21.49 and more than half (57.4%) of them were female. Only 41.9 percent of the respondents had good knowledge on the legalization of abortion and only 48.0 percent had a positive attitude toward the legalization of abortion. Factors like age, family income per month and education program were found to be statistically associated with the level of knowledge. Conclusion: Undergraduate students tends to have a poor level of knowledge and a negative attitude toward the legalization of abortion. Thus, the concerned authority and government should focus on awareness campaigns regarding abortion through various methods, media, and educational materials in order to overcome the problem of unsafe abortion.