Factors associated with young adults' pregnancy likelihood

Abstract

Introduction: Although progress has been made to reduce adolescent pregnancies in the United States, rates of unplanned pregnancy among young adults aged (aged 18-29 years) remain high. In this study, we assessed factors associated with perceived likelihood of pregnancy (likelihood of getting pregnant/getting partner pregnant in the next year) among sexually experienced young adults who were not trying to get pregnant and had previously used contraceptives.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of 660 young adults, aged 18 to 29 years in the United States, from the cross-sectional National Survey of Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge. Logistic regression and classification tree analyses were conducted to generate profiles of young adults most likely to report anticipating a pregnancy in the next year.

Results: Nearly one-third (32%) of young adults indicated that they believed they had at least some likelihood of becoming pregnant in the next year. Young adults who believed that avoiding pregnancy was not very important were most likely to report pregnancy likelihood (odds ratio [OR], 5.21; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.80-9.69), as were young adults who considered avoiding a pregnancy to be important but who were not satisfied with their current contraceptive method (OR, 3.93; 95% CI, 1.67-9.24) and who attended religious services frequently (OR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.52-5.94), were uninsured (OR, 2.63; 95% CI, 1.31-5.26), and were likely to have unprotected sex in the next 3 months (OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.04-3.01).

Discussion: These results may help guide future research and the development of pregnancy-prevention interventions targeting sexually experienced young adults.

Keywords: contraception; pregnancy in adolescence; unplanned pregnancy.

Figure 1

Classification tree of pregnancy likelihood. Class 1 denotes individuals reporting that a pregnancy is not likely, while class 2 denotes individuals reporting at least some likelihood of a future pregnancy. ^a indicates the terminal node number.