Life Assets in Teenage Pregnancy

Abstract

Background: Teenage pregnancy is an evolving global public health problem. Level of life assets could predict behaviors and take effect to less sexual risk behaviors in teenagers. Objective: To compare life assets between pregnant and non-pregnant teenagers and to evaluate the relationship between basic factors and teenage pregnancy. Methods: A total of 172 female teenagers aged 12-19 years were included. The control group was matched with the case group by age with mean age of 17.07 years old. The case group consisted of 86 pregnant teenagers who attended the Teenage Antenatal Care Unit at Siriraj Hospital. The control group consisted of 86 teenagers who were not pregnant and who had never been pregnant. The research instruments were general information and life assets inventory questionnaires developed by Suriyadeo Tripathi with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient at 0.890. Results: Mean life assets scores were significantly higher in the control group than in the case group (T-test analysis: Mean = 94.70/87.65, SD = 17.45/22.68, p-value =.024, respectively). The control group scored more favorably than the case group on 16 items. In addition, the case group could not meet the minimum assessment criteria on 21 items, which indicated their status as an at risk group. A total of 12 factors were found to be statistically significantly associated with teenage pregnancy. Conclusion: Overall life assets were significantly higher among teenagers who had not experienced pregnancy. The risk factors included level of education, GPA, family income, mothers or family members of teenagers having experience of teenage pregnancy, main guardians, father education, mother occupation, parental relationship, family warmth and smoking were found to be significantly associated with risk of teenage pregnancy in this study. These results will help to facilitate preventive interventions and the development of policies and guidelines to control and perhaps reverse current trends in teenage pregnancy.