Knowledge of Effects of Teenage Pregnancy among Teenagers in Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

Teenage pregnancy is a high risk event projected to increase by 2030 majorly in Africa. Knowledge of effects of teenage pregnancy becomes important in creating awareness on adverse health, socio-emotional, developmental, and economic implications of teenage pregnancy. The study assessed knowledge of effects of teenage pregnancy among teenagers in Nassarawa Eggon Local Government Area (LGA), Nasarawa State. Five research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. Cross-sectional research design was adopted for the study. Population consisted of 34,140 teenagers in Eggon LGA.  A sample size of 450 teenagers was randomly selected for the study. Researchers’ structured questionnaire, Knowledge of Effects of Teenage Pregnancy Questionnaire (KETPQ) was used for data collection. The validated KETPQ was tested for internal consistency, which yielded a reliability index of .780 with split half method (Spearman Brown coefficient correlation). Data analysis was done using frequency and percentage to answer the research questions, and chi-square statistics to test the null hypotheses at .05 alpha level. Results revealed that teenagers had very high knowledge of the effects of teenage pregnancy (88.5%). Education level (χ² = 38.667, p = .000 < .05) and location (χ² = 5.442, p = .020 < .05) were significantly associated with knowledge of effects of teenage pregnancy among teenagers. The authors recommended that high level of knowledge of effects of teenage pregnancy needs to be sustained by maintaining informative mediums.