Loveline FUOH FORCHANG1
1University Of Dschang, Cameroon.
CaHReF 2018, Yaoundé Congres hall, 08 – 11 January 2019 , SME026
Background: Unintended pregnancy is an important public health challenge. Different efforts have been applied to reduce unintended pregnancy, but its rate is still on the increase in Africa and especially in Cameroon.
Objectif: This study assessed the prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancy among adolescents and late adolescents in the Dschang Health district, West Region
Methodology: A community based cross-sectional study design was conducted from January to July 2018. A total of 654 adolescents and late adolescents were randomly selected and screened for fitness. Then 646 adolescents fitted and were enrolled. Data on demographic, obstetric characteristics and other risk factors of unintended pregnancy were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The data was later entered into excel and exported to the R version 3.5.0 software for statistical analysis. Logistic regressions were used to assess the relationship between dependent and independent variables. Level of significance was determined at p-value <5%.
Results: After data treatment, 264 participants presented one or more pregnancy cases, 245 of the cases were unintended with a prevalence of 92.8%.This high prevalence was promoted by factors such as, early age at first sexual intercourse ≤18, poor knowledge on contraceptive methods, non- use of contraceptive methods and inadequate sexual education in the study population.
Conclusion/Recommandation: This district explores a high prevalence of unintended pregnancy among young girls with important factors promoting it. Contraceptive related factors and early age at first sexual intercourse were the most observed. Faced with these risk factors, family planning program centers providing contraceptive services to young girls and Education on how to deal with early sexual appetite in the young would be beneficial in averting unintended pregnancy and its related outcome on this District.
Key Words: Adolescent, late adolescent, Unintended pregnancy, DHD