Adolescents’ and Families’ Needs to Prevent Repeated Adolescent Pregnancy: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Repeated adolescent pregnancy affects maternal and child health and the family. This issue has become more prevalent in Thailand and requires strategies to address this. mHealth, an emerging tool in the digital era, has been highlighted to lead to better healthcare outcomes. This qualitative descriptive study explored end-users’ needs in decision-making for choosing contraception via mHealth to prevent repeated adolescent pregnancy. Purposive sampling was undertaken with the snowball technique to select 31 key informants: ten adolescent mothers, ten of their family members, and 11 healthcare providers. Data were collected by conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews at hospitals, homes and healthcare workplaces and were analyzed using content analysis, the trustworthiness of the data employed with data triangulation, member checking, and peer debriefing. Three main themes emerged from the findings: 1) The meaning of repeated pregnancy in adolescence involved being considered a trite event, a bullied girl, a burden and stress; 2) Motivating repeated pregnancy involved a lack of contraceptive knowledge, knowing methods and lack of awareness, knowing how to use but not using it, intending use and failing to use it; 3) The needs for repeated adolescents’ pregnancy prevention were easily accessible knowledge, having a trusted person, social support, and adolescent-friendly healthcare services. Knowledge about adolescents and their family needs to prevent repeated pregnancy is necessary for developing mHealth and valuable guidelines to improve contraceptive services to prevent repeated adolescent pregnancy.