KNOWLEDGE REGARDING TEENAGE PREGNANCY AMONG ADOLESCENT GIRLS, CHITWAN, NEPAL

Jayalaxmi Shakya* and Jenisha Gurung

ABSTRACT

Teenage pregnancy is defined as the occurrence of pregnancy in girls aged 13–19.Teenage pregnancy is one of the major problems of Nepal. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to find out knowledge regarding teenage pregnancy among adolescent girls of Shree Sharadpur Higher Secondary School, Chitwan, Nepal. A total of 75 adolescent girls students were selected by using probability simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by using structured self- administered questionnaire and analyzed by using SPSS version 20 in descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that out of 75 respondents, 57.35% were <15 years of age where 50% of them were studying in the ninth standard. Most of the respondents (82%) have no any family history of teenage pregnancy. Forty one percentage of the respondents were getting information of teenage pregnancy from books. Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that more than half of the respondents (53.3%) had adequate knowledge and 46.7% respondents had inadequate knowledge regarding teenage pregnancy. There was statistically significant association between level of knowledge with the level of class respondents were attending (p= 0.023), people respondents were currently living with (p= 0.032), their mothers' occupation (p= 0.013) and family history of teenage pregnancy in community (p= 0.030). Most of the adolescent girls have knowledge about the age limits of teenage group, meaning of teenage pregnancy, causes, and effects but there is less knowledge about health problem arising to the baby as well as the psychological problems.

Keywords: Adolescent girls, Knowledge, Teenage pregnancy, Chitwan.