Preventing Pregnancy in High School Students: Observations From a 3-Year Longitudinal, Quasi-Experimental Study

Gelfond, Jonathan; Dierschke, Nicole; Lowe, Diana; Plastino, Kristen

doi:10.2105/ajph.2016.303379

Cited by 8 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Other factors related to teen pregnancy are low self-esteem, feelings of abandonment and loneliness, and poor communication between the girl and her mother regarding the onset of sexual relations [ 16 ]. The latter element can have a very negative influence even when the teen girl has adequate information about birth control [ 17 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family context and individual situation of teens before, during and after pregnancy in Mexico City

Sámano

Martínez-Rojano

Robichaux

et al. 2017

BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

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BackgroundIn the last 20 years, adolescent pregnancy has become one of the most critical problems affecting women in Latin America and the Caribbean.MethodsThis qualitative study was based on in-depth interviews with 29 teen mothers. All of the pregnant teens were from low- to lower-middle-class social strata in the Mexico City metropolitan area. The family (living with the girl) and the individual context of pregnant teens were analysed on the basis of data from at least three interviews: during pregnancy and at approximately 6 and 24 months following delivery. Additionally, six mothers, four fathers, and four partners of the pregnant girls of the group were interviewed. The information on the individual and family situation before, during and after the pregnancy was recorded and transcribed, then analysed in three phases, comprising pre-analysis, exploration and interpretation.ResultsThe pregnant teens had a family background of teen pregnancy. The girls disclosed feelings of repression, loneliness and indifference to their parents, leading them to unprotected sexual relations without fear of pregnancy. After the pregnancy, communication improved between the girls and their parents, but became worse with their partner. Consequently, these teens returned to feeling as they did before getting pregnant. They stated that they would make their situation work for the sake of their child, and regretted dropping out of school and getting pregnant so young. Almost all said they were seeking love outside the family, which revealed a scenario of limited communication and unsatisfactory relations within the family.ConclusionsUnderstanding how communication works between parents and children is necessary to avoid teenage pregnancy, as well as early marriage or cohabitation, resulting in dropping out of school and financial constraints, which lead to great frustrations between the couple and affects the child. In addition, it is vitally important that adolescents be motivated in the family setting in order for them to continue their studies. There is also an urgent need to implement measures that compensate for educational inequality, as well as to strengthen strategies aimed at adolescent mothers and pregnant teens that encourage their school performance through the support of scholarship programs and day care centres. Many of the problems inherent in adolescence are related to the lack of affection and support, and in many cases are a reaction to authoritarian rules or limits established unilaterally by parents with little or no dialogue involved.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12884-017-1570-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family context and individual situation of teens before, during and after pregnancy in Mexico City

Sámano

Martínez-Rojano

Robichaux

et al. 2017

BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

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“…In the current study, all but one teen received the full program dose as intended, and the one youth who did not receive the full dose due to a technical problem received more than 95% of the intended program content. These rates exceed those of other more time-intensive interventions in which participant attrition is a serious concern and the full program dose is not achieved for many youth (e.g., Coyle et al, 2006;Gelfond, Dierschke, Lowe, & Plastino, 2016). Additionally, while we tested the efficacy of the HEART for Teens program in a school setting, the online platform allows for flexibility in where the program is ultimately delivered, which could be at home, in a clinic setting, or via smartphone on the go.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy of a Brief Online Sexual Health Program for Adolescents

Widman

Kamke

Evans

et al. 2019

The Journal of Sex Research

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This study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a 45-minute interactive, online sexual health program for adolescents, called Health Education and Relationship Training (HEART). The program was originally developed and evaluated among adolescent girls (HEART for Girls); the current project describes and evaluates a new version of the program that was adapted for boys and girls. Participants were 226 high school students (mean age = 16.3; 58% girls; 46% White; 79% heterosexual). Students were randomized to HEART or an attention-matched control and assessed at pre-test and immediate post-test. Overall, the program was feasible to administer in a school setting and youth found the program highly acceptable (83% liked the program, 87% learned new things, and 93% would use program content in the future). At post-test, students who completed HEART demonstrated improvement on every outcome we examined: sexual communication intentions, condom use intentions, HIV/STD knowledge, condom attitudes, condom norms, self-efficacy to practice safer sex, and sexual assertiveness compared to control participants (effect size ds = .23 to 1.27). Interactions by gender and sexual orientation revealed the program was equally acceptable and worked equally well for boys and girls and for heterosexual and sexual minority youth. We propose several avenues to further adapt and tailor HEART given its promise in promoting adolescent sexual health.

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“…Of the 27 studies that were included in this review, twelve were conducted in the United States (Berglas et al, 2016;Denny & Young, 2016;LaChausse, 2006;Daley et al, 2019;Gelfond et al, 2016;Lan et al, 2019;Rohrbach et al, 2015;Markham et al, 2014;Markham et al, 2012;Rohrbach et al, 2019;Tortolero et al, 2010;Peskin et al, 2015), three in South Africa (James et al, 2006;Mason-Jones et al, 2013;Taylor et al, 2014), two in Nigeria (Esere, 2008;Mba et al, 2007), and each remaining study was conducted in Mexico (Walker et al, 2006), China (Li et al, 2011), Northern Ireland (Lohan et al, 2018), Scotland (Tucker at al., 2007), Ethiopia (Menna et al, 2015), Uganda (Musiimenta, 2012), Bangkok (Thato et al, 2008), Swaziland (Burnett et al, 2011), Northern Malawi (Mwale & Muula, 2019), and Mongolia (Cartagena et al, 2006).…”

Section: Characteristics Of Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies that receive one weak rating is considered moderate and those that receive two or more weak ratings are considered weak. For the present review, the quality appraisal of the included studies using these rating criteria provided no studies that scored a rating of strong, 21 studies scored a rating of moderate and six studies scored a rating of weak (Cartagena et al, 2006;Denny & Young, 2016;Gelfond et al, 2016;Lan et al, 2019;Mason-Jones et al, 2013;Mba et al, 2007). The main reasons for the weak quality rating were selection bias, failure to mention whether the researcher or participants were blind to the study aims, lack of control for possible confounding variables and failure to report reliabilities and validities on outcome measures.…”

Section: Quality Appraisalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two studies measured pregnancy risk, STI risk, multiple partners and use of sexual health services (Berglas et al, 2016;Rohrbach et al, 2015). The remaining eight studies measured single sexual health behaviours with three studies measuring delayed sexual initiation (Markham et al, 2012;Peskin et al, 2015;Tortelero et al, 2010) and six studies measuring ever engaged in oral sex, vaginal and anal intercourse (Rohrbach et al, 2019), condom use (Walker et al, 2006), HIV risk reduction (Mwale & Muula, 2019), pregnancy rates in first three years of receiving sex education intervention (Gelfond et al, 2016), unprotected sex (Lohan et al, 2018) and age of sexual debut (Mason- Jones et al, 2013). For all included studies condom use and frequency of sexual activity were the most frequently targeted sexual health behaviours (e.g., how often do you use condoms/consistent condom use in the past three months or did you have sexual intercourse in the past 6 months), followed by the number of sexual partners (multiple/number of sexual partners).…”

Section: Aggregated Findings Of Included Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the effectiveness of school-based sex education in sexual health behaviours: A systematic review

Niland¹,

Nearchou²

2023

Preprint

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Objective: To systematically review and synthesise evidence on the effectiveness of school-based sex education interventions on sexual health behaviour outcomes and to identify Behaviour Change Techniques (BCT) associated with school-based sex education interventions on sexual health behaviours.Methods: Electronic searches were conducted to systematically identify literature for school-based sex education interventions targeting sexual health behaviours. Results were presented as a narrative synthesis. Results: Twenty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies examined sexual health behaviours such as condom usage, frequency of sexual activity, initiation of sexual activity and number of sexual partners. Nine (out of 93) Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) were identified with the most used BCTs being information about health consequences and social and emotional consequences, demonstration of behaviour, behavioural practice/rehearsal and instructions on how to perform the behaviour.Conclusion: This review has systematically identified and synthesised all available evidence for school-based sex education interventions and sexual health behaviours. School-based sex education interventions can be effective in promoting positive sexual health behaviours. This review provides a conceptual foundation of school-based sex education interventions for shaping sexual health behaviours and offers evidence-based knowledge for researchers, educators and policy makers in understanding what is known across the diverse sexual health literature.

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Preventing Pregnancy in High School Students: Observations From a 3-Year Longitudinal, Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract: The educational intervention had no impact on the pregnancy rate. Social media tools in pregnancy prevention programs should be adaptive to new technologies and rapidly changing adolescent preferences for these services.

Cited by 8 publications

References 15 publications

Family context and individual situation of teens before, during and after pregnancy in Mexico City

Family context and individual situation of teens before, during and after pregnancy in Mexico City

Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy of a Brief Online Sexual Health Program for Adolescents

Assessing the effectiveness of school-based sex education in sexual health behaviours: A systematic review

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