Original article
Maternal discussions about pregnancy and adolescents, attitudes toward pregnancy

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Abstract

Purpose

To identify aspects of maternal-adolescent relationships that are associated with high ambivalence toward pregnancy.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study of 350 inner-city, African-American females between the ages of 14 and 17 years residing in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Adolescent females and their resident female caretaker (usually the biological mother) were both interviewed. Multiple regression analyses were used to predict adolescents’ pregnancy attitudes from maternal-adolescent discussions about pregnancy, perceived maternal disapproval of pregnancy, and relationship satisfaction.

Results

Greater levels of discussion about negative consequences of pregnancy, stronger levels of perceived maternal disapproval, and higher levels of satisfaction all were associated with more negative attitudes towards pregnancy on the part of the adolescent.

Conclusions

Maternal communication about the negative consequences of experiencing a pregnancy and the quality of the mother–daughter relationship more generally may impact on adolescent attitudes toward pregnancy.

Section snippets

Respondents

Respondents were 373 female African-American adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 years residing in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Respondents were identified using area sampling with the 1990 Census Public Law tapes for Blacks, ages 12–14 years of age. A number of criteria had to be met in order for a mother–adolescent pair to qualify for participation. The adolescent had to be unmarried and between the ages of 14 and 17 years and residing in the same household as a mother or female

Results

The response distributions for the pregnancy attitude items are reported in Table 1. A multiple regression analysis was performed regressing the adolescents’ pregnancy attitudes onto the general measure of communication about pregnancy, the perceived disapproval of the mother about the adolescent engaging in sex, and relationship satisfaction. The multiple correlation was 0.37 (p < .01) and the unstandardized regression coefficients were −0.15 for the pregnancy discussion predictor, −0.36 for

Discussion

Item response distributions for the pregnancy attitude items reported in the present paper are roughly similar to those reported by Jaccard et al [1], although they indicate somewhat higher levels of attitude ambivalence (closer to 30% as opposed to the 16% levels reported by Jaccard et al). This higher level of ambivalence is consistent with the ethnic differences reported by Jaccard et al, since the present sample consisted of all African-American females.

Recent research has documented the

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