Risk awareness among pregnant adolescent women in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study aimed to establish the extent of knowledge of adolescent women relating to pregnancy-related complications. To establish this, a non-experimental descriptive survey was undertaken, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The setting of the study was a prenatal care clinic at Marondera Provincial hospital, Zimbabwe. Participants in the study included 66 adolescent pregnant women aged 13 to 19 years, who attended prenatal care at Marondera Provincial hospital. For the purpose of this study, the main outcome measures were selected indicators of adolescents' knowledge on pregnancy-related complications such as preterm delivery, preterm labour, obstructed labour, abortion, stillbirth, and anaemia. Knowledge of the influence of age factors was also analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics. Thirty-nine (59.1%) participants had no knowledge of the complications related to pregnancy, while 27 (40.1%) had some knowledge of the complications related to pregnancy. Only 1 participant (1.5%) knew that HIV/AIDS was related to pregnancy complications. Adolescent women married early and were susceptible to pregnancy-related complications. Age was associated with the frequency of occurrence of pregnancy-related complications in women. The older the woman was, the less susceptible she was to pregnancy-related complications. The adolescents had limited knowledge of pregnancy-related complications, although some of them had received some form of knowledge on the complications. However, before any interventions can be recommended, more research is needed.