BIRTH CONTROL FOR TEENAGERS: IMPACT ON NURSING PRACTICE
The delivery of birth control information to teenagers and making contraceptive devices or preparations accessible to teenagers are two related and equally controversial issues in the United States in the 1990s. The increasing prevalence of both teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among teenagers, however, exerts an impact on the practice of nursing regardless of how controversial the issues may be. This research reviews the problems associated with unprotected sexual activity among teenagers as well as the attitudes of teenagers toward the use of condoms, as a means of illustrating the impact of these phenomena on the practice of nursing.
Prevalence of and Problems Associated With Unprotected Sexual Activity By Teenagers
Adolescent pregnancy continues to be one of the most challenging public health issues in the United States (Jaskiewicz and McAnarney, 1994, p. 32). Annually, more than one-million teenagers in the United States become pregnant, and one-half of these teenagers give birth (Stevens-Simon, 1992, p. 295). Of the remaining 50 percent, from three- to four fifths obtain therapeutic abortions, while the remainder abort spontaneously (Stevens-Simon, 1992, p. 295). The highest incidence of adolescent pregnancies in the United States is among African
Americans (Tennyson, 1991, p. 11).
A variety of causal factors are implicated in teenage pregnancy. Pregnancy often induces behavioral system imbalance into the life of a teenaged girl because the typical teenaged girl is a person who has "not yet completed her biological, socioemotional, or cognitive development" (Records, 1993, p. 326). An exploratory research study found that pregnant teenaged girls had a lower self-concept than non-pregnant controls in relation to moral, family, and social dimensions (Paik, 1992, pp. 93-111). Another research study found that teenaged girls w...