Nursing Research Teenage Pregnancy Trend

Bicol University
College of Nursing
Legazpi City

TEENAGE PREGNANCY TREND
IN POBLACION BACON, SORSOGON CITY

Submitted by:
Sheena Angela B. Diolata BSN II-B

Submitted to:
Professor Emee I. Tomenio Biostatistics Professor
The Problem
Introduction
"HUMAYO KAYO AT MAGPAKARAMI!!"
GOD told to NOAH after the great flood. What does He really meant with that word? Does He mean to multiply in flesh or spread people's faith?
Teenagers in 21st century are very impulsive and very eager to try new things and stuff. We are civilized people yet we pretend to be ignorant when it comes to sex. Ignorant that teenager may have the possibilities to be engaged in sexual activity by the time they reached the age of 16, or even younger and worse, get pregnant
Pregnancy is a gift. The baby is a miracle, a great gift and treasure from God. Pregnancy is not a sin neither a crime. It is merely a result of a consummated relationship; pregnancy may not be planned by man but has long been laid out in the perfect plan of our Creator.1
Pregnancy is a maturational milestone that can be stressful but also rewarding as the woman prepares for a new level of caring and responsibility. Pregnancy during the teenage years however, is a bombastic situation, one that comes unexpected. For a teen facing unintended pregnancy, the physical, emotional and spiritual issues can seem overwhelming.2
The sexual revolution has ushered in a period in which the average adolescent experiences tremendous pressures to have sexual experiences of all kinds. Filipino teens get a higher exposure to sex from the Internet, magazines, TV shows, movies and other media than decades ago, yet without any corresponding increase in information on how to handle the input. So kids are pretty much left to other kids for opinions and value formation when it comes to sex.
Adolescence is a period when there is the resurgence of instinctual drives brought about by biological and physical changes of puberty and reflects the transition period from childhood to adulthood. Behavioral manifestations include elements of both stages. Generally, there is little stability as to adolescent moves from crisis to crisis, which are brought about by various libidinal drives. Dynamic explanation of adolescents are described as having unpredictable behaviors for example, strong and mature at times, yet regressing to using defenses used in childhood.4
In the Philippines today, teenage pregnancy is among the ubiquitous occurrence. Some 16.5 million Filipinos belong to the 15-24 year old age group. We are forced with a glaring truth that at a very young age, a lot of young people today have children of their own. 30 % of all births belong to this age group; and by the age of 20, 25% of the youth are already mothers. Statistics show that every year at least 64,000 teenagers have abortions, and those are statistics from a country where abortion is illegal.
The Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc. (FFPDI) said that the steady increase in the incidence of teen pregnancies in the country in the past few years has reached an “alarming stage.”
“The problem lies in the government’s sincerity in addressing issues about population growth and reproductive health,” Benjamin de Leon, FFPDI president, said in a news briefing in Quezon City on Tuesday.
The age of the childbearing couple may have a significant influence on their physical and psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy. Normal developmental processes that occur in both very young and older mothers are interrupted by pregnancy and require different type of adaptation to pregnancy than that of the woman of typical childbearing age.3 The pregnant adolescent is at high risk for having physical complications such as premature labor, iron deficiency anemia, eclampsia as well as numerous psychological crises.
Teenage mothers are at a higher risk of poverty, inability to maintain a stable job, ending up in abusive homes, having children who perform poorly in school, and having daughters with a 22% higher risk of also becoming pregnant during their teenage years, according to research conducted by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.5 The researcher chose to focus and study this topic not merely because of the emerging social problem that is actually starting to become a trend but most especially because she want to delve deeper and understand more about the struggles of a teenage mother. She decided to choose Poblacion Bacon specifically mainly because she is a local and also she is concerned with the evolving phenomenon that she wants to raise awareness.
Statement of the Problem The study aimed on answering the researcher’s curiosity about the teenage pregnancy trend in the last few years and this current year 2011. This will answer the following questions:
1. What is the demographic data in terms of:
a. Age
b. Occupation
c. Number of children
2. What was the youngest age recorded to have given birth? In what year?
3. What year has the highest recorded teenage pregnancy?
4. What was the civil status of the teen moms?

NOTES

1 http://www.philippinestoday.net/index.php?module=article&view=1294
2 Lowdermilk, Deitra and Perry, Shannon E. Maternity Nursing 7th edition. (Elsevier Pte Ltd, 2007) p.233

3 Lowdemilk and Perry, p75
4 Hogarth, Christina R., Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing (Mosby-Year Book, Inc, 1991) p.29
5http://www.ehow.com/list_6008163_psychological-effects-teenage-pregnancy.html

Definition of Terms
The following terms are defined conceptually and operationally according to how each was used in the study for clearer understanding between the researcher and the readers.

Adolescent. The transition from childhood to adulthood, the period where childhood ends and youth begins.1 In this study it is attributed to those women whose age ranges from 15 to 20 years old and locals of Poblacion Bacon.
Pregnancy. It is the state of the female during the gestation of an embryo.2 In the study, it refers to the childbearing of a woman, specifically from Poblacion Bacon.
Teenage Pregnancy. In this research it refers to the conception at an early age, ranging from 13 to 19 years old which is one of the problems nowadays due to the increasing rate of its occurrence.
Teen Moms. It refers to the teenage mothers.

NOTES

1 Algeria A. Javier, A Path to Wholeness: Healing Stages of Life, (Spiritus Works Publication, 2002) p. 123
2 Kahayon, Alicia H. & Aquino, Gaudencio V., General Psyhology 2nd Ed., (National Bookstore, Inc. 1985) p. 316

Scope and Delimitation
The research is concerned in finding the trend of teenage pregnancy in Poblacion Bacon. The data will however be limited because not all pregnant teens under the year 2005 to 2011 had a record in the clinic.

Data Gathering

Research Designs This study will utilize the descriptive type of research design wherein it aims to systematically describe, observe, and document aspects of a given real-life situation. It provides an accurate account on characteristics of particular individuals, problem, situation, phenomenon, or groups.1

Sources of Data
This research used secondary sources that came from the records of Poblacion Health Center. The researcher acquired more helpful information through the use of internet.

Respondents of the Study This study collected the vital data of thirteen teen moms from the records of Poblacion Clinic. All are alleged residents of Poblacion, Bacon and belonged to the age group of 13-19 when they had their first pregnancy.

Data Gathering Procedure In order to gather the data needed, the researcher seeks cooperation from a nurse working at the Poblacion Clinic. The data gathering was conducted during the researcher’s free time, last Tuesday, April 26, 2011. The gathered information was analyzed and each datum was given implication. Lastly, the results were generalized to arrive at a conclusion.
Statistical Treatment The data to be collected will be statistically treated with the use of frequency count and percentage. To determine the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of age, occupation, and number of children, frequency count and will be used.
Frequency count refers to the number of times that a particular score or observation occurred. It is the number of observations failing in some cell or in some classification categories.2
Percentage indicate the percent of the sample whose scores fall in a specific group as well as the number of scores in that group.3 It is taken by multiplying one hundred to the quotient of the frequency of an answer over the total number of cases and so the formula is given as:
P= F/N * 100
Where:
P= Percentage
F= Frequency
N= Number of Cases
100= constant

Data Presentation This contains the analysis and interpretation of the data collected pertinent to the research problem under investigation. It consists of three parts namely: ages of the teen moms, percentage of unmarried childbearing versus married childbearing, and number of pregnancies from year 2005 to year 2011.
Ages of the teen moms
Age Number of teen moms Percentage Rank
16 1 7.69% 4
17 5 38.46% 1
18 4 30.76% 2
19 3 23.08% 3 Table 1 show that 38.46% of the teen moms in the sample had given birth at the tender age of 17. Second was at the age of 18, 30.76% attested to this. At the age of 19, there was 23.08% and lastly at the age of 16, which was the youngest, there was only one recorded case.
Rate of Pregnancy from 2005-2011 Chart 1 shows the increasing trend of teenage pregnancy. The most number of recorded teenage pregnancies in Poblacion Bacon happened in the year 2010 with four cases.

Unmarried Childbearing versus married Childbearing Chart 2 shows that all of the pregnant teens in the sample were unmarried and as the year goes on, there is a steady growth of unmarried teen moms. It was 100% to 0%.

Findings and Conclusions The study was centered in finding the trend of teenage pregnancy in Poblacion Bacon. The research focused on thirteen teen moms from Poblacion Bacon as the respondents of the study. It further identified the different years when they got pregnant, their ages when they got pregnant and percentage of out-of-wedlock births. It covered the years 2005-2011.

Findings
1. The youngest age recorded that has gotten pregnant was 16 years old, and with only one case. Most of the teens however got pregnant at the age of 17.
2. 2010 had the highest incident of teenage pregnancy in Poblacion Bacon. 2011 may have the least but it was only from January 2011 to April 2011.
3. 100% of the teenage pregnancy was out-of-wedlock and this rises as the year goes on.

Conclusions Based from the significant findings of the study the following conclusions were drawn:
1. As the years go by, teens are being exposed to sex more and their desire to experiment grows while they are not being given proper information about it. And as time goes, Pinoy teens are starting to become liberated, following countries like America, Sweden and France, where teen sexual expression is seen as normal and positive.
However, the expectation that sexual intercourse will take place within committed relationships and that young people who are having sex will take actions to protect themselves and their partners from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases remains unmet. They know how to have sex but they do not know how to protect themselves or their partners. This is where sex education should come. If the government will continue to ignore this and if the teens will refuse to be responsible, then it is very much likely that there would be more teenage pregnancies and unfortunately more and more teens will get pregnant at an even earlier age.
2. Along with modernization comes sexual liberation. Morals no longer count as much as it did years ago. It is very much likely that as the years go by the figure will rise. If the policymakers would be eager to find ways to sustain a decline in teenage pregnancy then maybe the trend will cease to go up and up and up.
3. 13-0. The figure is quite devastating. The old tradition of preserving the women’s virginity until marriage seems not to exist much anymore.
I would say that we should continue our focus on personal responsibility; we should do a better job of not only funding local efforts to combat teen pregnancy, but also of highlighting successful programs; we should increase access to youth development and after-school programs that give teenagers productive activities to pursue; and we should promote the value of abstinence without undercutting our commitment to providing access to and information about contraception.

NOTES

1Cacanindin, Eden E., Nursing Research: Study Notes and Guides, (C & E Publishing, Inc.,2010) p.69
2 Macnee, Carol L., Understanding Nursing Research (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc., 2004) p.397
3 Burns, Nancy & Susan K. Grove, Understanding Nursing Research (Saunders Company, 1995) p.329