Adolescent childbearing ambivalence: is it the sum of its parts?

Background: This study was conducted to compare the utility of methods of assessing ambivalent attitudes about childbearing that require deductive reasoning by the subject to methods that do not. The goal was to predict the intent to use a noncoital method of contraception during adolescence.

Design: Participants (N=340) in a racially and ethnically diverse population (white 20%, black 25%, Hispanic 55%) completed two scales concerning attitudes toward childbearing-a traditional Likert scale and a scale with positive, negative, and "I go back and forth" response choices.

Depression, weight gain, and low birth weight adolescent delivery: do somatic symptoms strengthen or weaken the relationship?

Objective: To determine if omission of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) items that assess the somatic symptoms of depression improves the psychometric properties of the scale and utility of the CES-D diagnosis of depression for predicting four adverse obstetrical outcomes that have been tentatively linked to maternal depression.

Methods: A cohort of 1684 13-21-year-old participants in an adolescent-oriented maternity program completed the CES-D at enrollment. Chi-square analyses were used to compare the predictive capacity of depression diagnosed by the full CES-D and the 14-item non-somatic subscale of the CES-D.

Trends in illness severity and length of stay in inner-city adolescents hospitalized for pelvic inflammatory disease.

Background: In 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed their guidelines for treatment of adolescents with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), no longer recommending hospitalization of all teenagers.

Study Objectives: (1) To determine the proportion of adolescents with PID who were admitted for failed outpatient treatment after the CDC guideline change. (2) To determine if adolescents admitted for PID after the guideline change needed longer hospital stays and/or were more likely to be "very ill" [as measured by inflammation markers, e.

Age at menarche and first pregnancy among psychosocially at-risk adolescents.

We sought to determine which factors influence the association between menarche and conception among adolescent study participants (n = 1030), who demonstrated an earlier age of menarche than did national samples. Age at first sexual intercourse (coitarche) mediated the relationship between age at menarche and first pregnancy among White girls, whereas gynecologic age at coitarche (age at coitarche minus age at menarche) and age at menarche explained the timing of the first pregnancy among Black and Hispanic girls. Pregnancy prevention interventions to delay coitarche should also include reproductive education and contraception.

Association of conventional goals and perceptions of pregnancy with female teenagers' pregnancy avoidance behavior and attitudes.

Context: Fostering conventional goals is a key component of pregnancy prevention interventions for teenagers. However, research has not shown whether having goals independently influences sexual behavior, or whether the perception that pregnancy represents an impediment to achieving goals mediates any association.

Methods: In 1999-2001, a racially mixed group of 351 sexually experienced female teenagers who were inadequate contraceptive users completed surveys about goals, the anticipated impact of childbearing on these goals, and protective behaviors and attitudes.