Social and Behavioural Determinants for Occurrence of Repeat Pregnancy among Adolescents in Suna East-Migori County, Kenya

Introduction: A repeat pregnancy at adolescent age often comes with much stress and complications. It feeds into a cycle of psychological trauma and socio-economic deprivation that compromises the life of the young mother and her child. Majority of girls might be having one child, but many more might be pregnant or having more than one child at adolescent age. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional analytic mixed-method study with semi-structured questionnaires administered to 381 adolescents drawn from 10 health facilities. Two FGD and 5 key informant interviews were also conducted within the study area. Quantitative data was analysed using t-test for continuous variables and Chi-square test for categorical data. Qualitative data was themed to describe the population’s attitudes, patterns and opinions related to the study objectives. Results: Ethnicity significantly influenced occurrence of repeat pregnancy with adolescent girls from Luo ethnic group being 50% less likely to have repeat pregnancy. Adolescents who used condoms only sometimes were twice likely to report repeat pregnancy (OR: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.1 - 2.7; p = 0.01), while those whose mothers had a child while under 18 years had 50% chance of having a repeat pregnancy. Similarly, those who had more than two sexual partners had higher odds of repeat pregnancy (OR: 2.5; 95% CI: 1.1 - 5.6; p = 0.02). Conclusion: The study sought to investigate the association between social environment and behaviour of adolescent girls to occurrence of repeat pregnancy. It was based on Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory (SCT) that explains how human behaviour is a reciprocal interaction between the person, behaviour and the social environment. The study noted that as much as adolescent pregnancy is generally considered a social, economic and behavioural phenomenon, there was little influence by individuals around an adolescent, adolescent past-experience, future expectation, social surrounding and reinforcements in life of a teenager. However, a few factors such as ethnicity, level of support and condom use significantly influenced occurrence of repeat pregnancy among adolescents.