Never-pregnant adolescents and family planning programs: contraception, continuation, and pregnancy risk.

Abstract

Urban Black teenagers enrolling in a family planning program before pregnancies occurred were following for 1 yr to assess factors influencing continuation of contraceptive use. Over half the follow-up respondents claimed to always use contraception. Program discontinuers were less likely to use contraception, but nearly half had no sex activity when contacted at follow-up. Sex frequency reported in the sample was low. Background factors of age, grade and household were associated with contraceptive use and with pregnancy. Girls who had pregnancies were significantly more likely to live in a single-parent household, to have sex more frequently, and to have stated at enrolling that they wanted their 1st chlld before age 20 yr. A majority of the sample, nearly all of whom obtained oral contraception, did not know at the 1 yr follow-up how to use any alternative methods for preventing conception, hence many would again be at risk of pregnancy when sex activity resumed.