The Psycho-Social Wellbeing of the Teenage Mothers

Abstract

The quantitative study assessed the psychosocial wellbeing of teenage mothers. This report analysed the current positions of women whose first child was to be born when they were teenagers in the rural Eastern Cape Province. The structured questionnaires were administered to 106 pregnant teenagers in clinics around Alice, Eastern Cape. Convenient sampling was used to select respondents. Data was analysed using SPSS version 18.0. Statistical software. Descriptive and inferential statistics were both employed. The binary regression model was used to assess the factors affecting the pregnant teenagers’ readiness for motherhood. The psycho-social theory of Erikson posited that children with negative psycho-social development have a high chance of facing identity crisis/confusion. As a result, this might lead to them being victims of psycho-social interaction such as early pregnancy. Both the descriptive and the binary regression results indicated that 79% of the teenage mothers showed lack of readiness for motherhood, hence their psychosocial wellbeing was negative.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n10p610