Guidelines for Community Participation in Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Based on the Community-as-Partner Model

Abstract

Aim: The study explored the community stakeholders’ perceptions in teenage pregnancy prevention and also identified current teenage pregnancy intervention programmes in a typical South African township. Methods: The study was contextual with an exploratory strategy. The research design is both qualitative and quantitative designs. The sample size for the study was determined by saturation of data and consisted of 75 participants. The target population were teenagers and four samples consisting of parents, teachers, professional nurses and community leaders. The qualitative data gathering method was self-report using a semi-structured interview and the data gathering instrument used for quantitative data was a questionnaire. Owing to the verbal nature of the qualitative data, template analysis style was combined with content analysis using open coding according to Tesch’s approach. Results: The findings revealed that although teenage pregnancy initiative was in existence in the community, the majority of participants’ especially the teenagers had no knowledge of it. Teenagers in the study indicated that provision of condoms in school, preventing pregnant teenagers from schooling during pregnancy and stopping of social grants for teenage mothers as preventive strategies for the prevention of teenage pregnancy. All the participants viewed teenage pregnancy as a common occurrence in the community. The majority of the professional nurses’ sample indicated that it will be more helpful to commence sexuality education among children before the age of ten. Majority of the parent participants in the study discouraged the use of contraceptives by teenagers for pregnancy prevention instead advocated for sexual abstinence among teenagers to be more viable in the teenage pregnancy. Conclusion: The study provided evidence of the applicability of the “Community-as-Partner” Model in the prevention of teenage pregnancy. Guidelines for the prevention of teenage pregnancy from a broad community-based perspective, using the Community-as-Partner Model and the findings of the study were developed for registered professional nurses.