Determinants and Consequences of Teenage Pregnancy in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Teenage pregnancy is the occurrence of pregnancy in girls below twenty years, it is a social and public health issue that denies girls the opportunity to complete education and acquire human capital skills needed for gainful employment in the labour market and decision-making on key issues of development. It is a leading cause of mortality among adolescent girls and it affects the current and future socio-economic well-being of pregnant teens. Previous studies on teenage pregnancy treated teenage pregnancy as purely a public health issue thereby largely focusing on the health implications of teen pregnancy. This study therefore examined the determinants and the consequences of teenage pregnancy, and to achieve this purpose, the study adopted the Sexual risk and protective factors theory as its theoretical underpinning, an online survey was conducted using Google Docs and 340 questionnaires were administered. Univariate (mean and standard deviation) and bivariate analyses (Pearson correlation P≤0.05) were done on the data collected. The study found that poor parenting style and inadequate/ lack of access to sex education were factors that determine teenage pregnancy in Akwa Ibom State. School abandonment was found to be a consequence of teenage pregnancy. The study recommends that before sexual debut, students should have access to sex education and that parents should provide the best parenting style to complement the efforts of the school counsellors.