Contributing Variables to Teenage Pregnancy among Female Adolescents in Nigeria (Published)
This study examined contributing variables to teenage pregnancy among female adolescents in Akoko districts of Ondo State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. The Population for this study consisted all pregnant teenager’s attending antenatal care in Akoko districts Health Centre (HC) and General Hospital (GH). Purposive sampling technique was used to select 20% (720) from 3,600 registered pregnant teenagers for antenatal. Simple random sampling of fish bowl with replacement was used to select fifteen (15) respondents at each HC and seventy two at GH respectively. A Contributing Variable to Teenage Pregnancy Questionnaire (CVTPQ) was developed by researcher and used for data collection. The instrument was validated by experts and a reliability coefficient of 0.83 was established with Cronbach’s alpha. Data collected were analyzed using simple percentage for demographic data while linear regression was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that inadequate knowledge about sexuality education, peer pressure, lack of parental guidance and media/internet were contributing variables to teenage pregnancy among female adolescents. Recommendations were made among is that government should make health care professionals working with adolescent’s to develop a wide range of practical and interpersonal initiatives on teenage pregnancy.
Keywords: Adolescent, Media/Internet, Parental Guidance, Peer Pressure, Sexuality Education, Teenage Pregnancy.