Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Dec;12(4):426-34.
doi: 10.4314/ahs.v12i4.5.

Adolescent pregnancy and associated factors in South African youth

G Mchunu  1 , K Peltzer, B Tutshana, L Seutlwadi
Affiliations

Adolescent pregnancy and associated factors in South African youth

G Mchunu et al. Afr Health Sci. 2012 Dec.

Abstract

Background: Adolescent pregnancy, occurring in girls aged 10-19 years, remains a serious health and social problem worldwide, and has been associated with numerous risk factors evident in the young people's family, peer, school, and neighbourhood contexts.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of adolescent pregnancy and associated factors in the South African context, as part of a population-based household survey that formed part of an evaluation of the impact of loveLife, South Africa's national HIV prevention campaign for young people.

Methods: A cross-sectional population-based household survey was conducted using a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling approach. The total sample included 3123 participants, aged 18-24, 54.6% men and 45.4% women, from four of nine provinces in South Africa (Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga).

Results: Among female youth 19.2% said that they had an adolescent pregnancy, while 5.8% of male youth indicated that they had impregnated a girl when they were an adolescent (12-19 years), 16.2% of the women indicated that they ever had an unwanted pregnancy and 6.7% had ever terminated a pregnancy. In multivariable analysis among women it was found that being employed or unemployed, greater poverty, having higher sexually permissive attitudes and scoring higher on the contraceptive or the condom use index was associated with adolescent pregnancy, and among men wanting the pregnancy and having a sense of the future were associated with adolescent pregnancy.

Conclusion: Adolescent pregnancy was found to be high in this sample of South African youth. Multiple factors contributing to adolescent pregnancy have been identified which can be used in targeting young people on the prevention of adolescent pregnancy.

Keywords: Adolescent pregnancy; South Africa; loveLife youth programme exposure; youth between 18–24 years.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. World Health Organisation (WHO), author Adolescent pregnancy. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/adolescent_pregnancy/en... at 14 December 2011.
    1. Omar K, Hasim S, Muhammad NA, Jaffar A, Hashim SM, Siraj HH. Adolescent pregnancy outcomes and risk factors in Malaysia. Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2010;111:220–223. - PubMed
    1. East PL, Khoo ST, Reyes BT. Risk and protective factors predictive of adolescent pregnancy: A longitudinal, prospective study. Appl Dev Sci. 2006;10(4):188–199.
    1. Mkhwanazi N. Teenage pregnancy and HIV in South Africa. In: Schlyter A, editor. Body politics and women citizens: African experiences. pp. 83–92. Retrieved from http://www.sida.se/Documents/Import/pdf/Sida-Studies-No-24Body-Politics-... at 14 December 2011.
    1. Bankole A, Malarcher S. Removing barriers to adolescents' access to contraceptive information and services. Stud Fam Plann. 2010;41(2):117–124. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources