What can be done to reduce the prevalence of teen pregnancy in rural Eastern Uganda?: multi-stakeholder perceptions
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RESEARCH
Open Access
What can be done to reduce the prevalence of teen pregnancy in rural Eastern Uganda?: multi-stakeholder perceptions Josephine Nabugoomu1, Gloria K. Seruwagi2 and Rhona Hanning1*
Abstract Introduction: The teenage pregnancy rate of 25% in Uganda is worrying though it may seem low compared to 28% in Sub-Saharan countries and West and Central Africa. Young mothers in Uganda risk poor maternal and child health, being isolated, attempting unsafe abortions, failure to continue with school, and poverty. This paper describes perceptions and recommendations of young mothers, family and community members on why the high rate of teenage pregnancies in Uganda and how these can be reduced. Methods: This qualitative research was conducted from March to May 2016 in six communities within Budondo subcounty (Jinja district), Eastern Uganda. In-depth oral interviews were conducted with 101 purposively sampled adolescent mothers, family members, and workers of government and non-government organizations. Thematic analysis framed around levels of influence within a social cognitive framework was conducted using Atlas-ti (version 7.5.4). Results: Perceived determinants of teenage pregnancies include: lack of life and social survival skills, lack of knowledge on how to avoid pregnancy, low acceptance/use of contraceptives, neglect by parents, sexual abuse, pressure to contribute to family welfare through early marriage or sexual transactions, lack of community responsibility, media influence, peer pressure, cultural beliefs that promote early marriage/childbearing and lack of role models. Other contributing factors include drug use among boys, poverty, late work hours, long travel distances, e.g., to school, and unsupervised locations like sugarcane plantation thickets. Recommendations participants offered include: sensitization seminars and counselling for parents and girls, closing pornography outlets that accept entrance of minors, using the law to punish rapists, involvement of the President to campaign against early pregnancies, school dismissal before dark, locally accessible schools and job creation for parents to earn money to support the girls financially. Areas for capacity building are: training teachers and community members in transferring empowerment and vocational skills to girls, and construction of homes with separate rooms to support parents’ privacy. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 School of Public Health and Systems, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or oth
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