ABSTRACT

Almost 16 million of adolescent girl get pregnant each year, and most occur in developing countries in which Liberia is apart. It is assessed that on the normal, 3 in 10 Liberian adolescent girls gets pregnant before the age 18 and the researcher observed from her clinical environment and in the neighborhood, five out of ten pregnancies coming to the hospital is adolescent related pregnancy; most of these girls are still in secondary school and 3 out of 5 of these pregnancies end in complications.

Survey research design was adopted in this study. There were two schools randomly selected from the five schools in this area. The population of the study was 900 adolescent girls, out of which Noah’s Ark and D-Tweh High school were randomly selected, with a sample size of 309 adolescent girls but 205 were present on the day of data collection. The overall reliability test for the questionnaire was 0.85 Cronbach’s alpha (α). The Questionnaire titled “Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of adolescent girls towards prevention of unintended pregnancy in selected secondary schools in upper Gardnerville Somalia drive, Liberia” was used. There were 205 questionnaire distributed and all 205 copies retrieved, and analyzed. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, Correlation.

The study established the respondent’s level of knowledge about prevention of unintended pregnancy. The participants had very high knowledge level of knowledge of preventing unintended pregnancy. 5 (50%) had very high level of knowledge of preventing unintended pregnancy, 4 (40%) had high knowledge of preventing unintended pregnancy. Their attitudes were neither positive nor negative 6 (60%). The girls had positive perceptions towards preventing unintended pregnancy. According to the result, the girls said that injection is the most suitable method of prevention of unintended pregnancy. The results of the hypotheses showed that: There is a moderate negative and significant relationship between adolescent’ knowledge and perception towards prevention unintended pregnancy. (r = -060, p < .398) and there was a weak positive and significant relationship between adolescent’ knowledge and   prevention of unintended pregnancy (r = .500 p < .000). There was a perfect negative and significant relationship between adolescent’ perceptions and prevention towards unintended pregnancy (r = -138, p < .049).

The study concluded that Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions play a very important role in preventing unintended pregnancy. In the absence of adequate and factual knowledge, adolescents are bound to make unsound decisions that have a bearing on their lives. The perceptions of the girls will give you the clearer picture of how they will act or behave when it comes to prevention of pregnancy. The following recommendations were made: Ministry of education must include sex education as a course in the curriculum that will emphasize more on abstinence and must be thought from elementary, the ministry of health and social welfare should provide dedicated health care facilities with adolescent friendly services, Church heads must encourage Christian dating in any forum contain adolescent girls, ministry of Education must have an age restriction to classes.

Keywords: Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions, Adolescent girls, Prevention of

                   unintended pregnancy

Word Count: 473                                               

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