Awareness of the Health Risks Associated With Teenage Pregnancy in School Adolescents

This research was aimed at ascertaining the level of awareness of physical, social and emotional health risks associated with teenage pregnancy among in school adolescents in Oshimilli North Local Government Area of Delta State. Adopting a descriptive survey research design, a sample frame of 500 in school adolescents in Oshimilli North Local Government Area were randomly drawn using multistage sample procedure. A fifteen (15) item questionnaire reviewed the physical, social and emotional health risks associated with teenage pregnancy among in-school adolescents in the area of the study. The instrument was subject to face to face validity by the jury approach. The test retest reliability was applied to obtain coefficient for 82 which was considered high for the study. Descriptive statistics of frequency count, percentages and grand mean as well as inferential statistics of Chi-square (χ2) was used for data analysis. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Based on the findings, it was concluded that some (46.2%) of the respondents have low level of awareness of physical health risks associated with teenage pregnancy. There is significant relationship between male and female respondents in their level of awareness of health risks associated with teenage pregnancy. There is also a significant relationship among respondents of various ages, religious affiliations and level of education in their awareness of health risks associated with teenage pregnancy. Based on the findings and conclusion, recommendations were made pertinent among which are; health and allied educators should intensify their health education campaign against teenage pregnancy at school and at community level.