Abstract:
This research aims to explore the teenage pregnancy characteristics and
psychosocial factors that are associated with pregnancy of young women. The
sample is female adolescents aged 12-18 years, divided into 2 groups: a case group
of 134 young pregnant women who attended The Antenatal Care Clinic at Siriraj
Hospital and a control group of 134 young women who were not pregnant studying
in school in the same district of Siriraj Hospital or nearby area. Data was collected
by distributing a psychosocial factors questionnaire from May 4 to July 3, 2009. A
statistic analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, a chi-square test, and a
t-test.
The results revealed that the case group had an average age of 16.93
years. The majority of women in the case group had a junior high school education,
while the majority in the control group had a high school education. The case group
women had biological parents as their main guardians and were treated less fairly
than the control group women. Parents of women in the case group had unstable
jobs, lower education and lower income. Moreover the case group mainly had
parents with a marital status of divorced or separated. Additionally, the mothers
and relatives of these women were also teen mothers in the past and their peer
groups engaged in high risk behavior. The Case group used drugs more than the
control group. The psychosocial factors that differ between teenage pregnancy and
non-teenage pregnancy groups were statistically significant with a p-value <0.05.
These factors include the parents, occupation of parents, education levels of
parents, family income, marriage status of parents, relationship with siblings, child
rearing style, teenage pregnancy history of mother, teenage pregnancy history of
relatives, risky behavior of friends, cigarette use, alcohol use, and drug use.
This study identified that certain psychosocial factors differ between
teenage pregnancy and non-teenage pregnancy. Thus, these factors should be
studied further to explore whether they are risk factors for becoming young
mothers or not in the future.