Effectiveness and safety of medication abortion via telemedicine versus in-person: A cohort of pregnant people in Colombia

To compare the effectiveness and safety of medication abortion (MAB) via telemedicine versus in-person in pregnant people with less than 12 gestational weeks in Colombia. A retrospective cohort study was conducted with 23,362 pregnant people who requested MAB service from Profamilia (a Colombian non-governmental organization) in 2021–2022. The outcomes were success and safety of MAB. We performed a descriptive and a multivariate statistical analysis using the binary regression model to obtain an adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) to identify factors associated with abortion success. In comparison to in-person care (n = 20,289), individuals in telemedicine (n = 3073) were predominantly from urban areas, belonged to a lower socioeconomic stratum, single and did not identify with any ethnic group. In-person users tended to have higher levels of education and accessed the service through private insurance (p