A Repeated Teenage Pregnancy in Southernmost of Thailand

Abstract

A teenager pregnancy is a complex problem arisen in many countries, particularly in developing countries including Thailand. A more severe problem is found in a repeat teen pregnancy defined as a 2nd or more successful pregnancy for a teenage mother before the age of 20. Pattani, one of the poorest provinces in Thailand, has experienced a decreased pregnancy rate in teenagers, but the rate of repeat teen pregnancy has shown an increasing trend. This study is aimed to investigate factors associated with teenage repeat pregnancy in the province. The data between year 2016 and 2018 were retrieved from the Pattani Provincial Health Office and the number of samples is 2,259 observations. Chi-squared test and logistic regression were employed to investigate the factors related to teenage repeat pregnancy. The results show that 406 (18.0 %) cases are a repeat pregnancy. The majority of the samples are Muslim (91.2%) with 19 years old (36.9%) and 87.1 percent are not at school after finishing the primary school. Most of them had an intended pregnancy (88.6%), and 56 percent of the sample had a previous sex education, while 89.2% and 59.8% of them used a contraceptive before getting pregnant and after giving birth, respectively. The association analysis with logistic regression reveals that the factors related to a repeat teen pregnancy significant p-value less than 0.05 are age, religion, districts, contraceptive use and having a counselling after delivery.