Supporting Teen Mothers’ Healthy Decision Making

Barnes, Kamila

Saturday, 16 November 2013

Kamila Barnes, DNP, FNP-BC
School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

Learning Objective 1: 1) Describe some of the problems that adolescent mothers currently experience.

Learning Objective 2: 2) Consider how a school-based autonomy supportive intervention addresses these problems and how such interventions help in reducing health disparities.

BACKGROUND: Adolescent parenting is a common occurrence that providers encounter in healthcare and school settings. Teen mothers face many psychosocial challenges and barriers in achieving their personal goals that place them at risk for interrupted education, subsequent pregnancies, poverty, and health disparities. Fostering self-efficacy and resilience are important components in helping adolescents feel that they can be good parents, attain their personal goals, and enhance their social support. The ability to have good problem-solving skills significantly contributes to an individual’s feeling of competence and autonomy.

METHODS: Using a single pretest-posttest, mixed methods design underserved, low-income adolescent mothers’ (14-19 years) were recruited from a large educational campus in Rochester, NY. Participants received an intervention designed to improve adolescent mother’s problem-solving skills based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It was hypothesized that if the young mothers felt more autonomous, competent, and motivated, then they would be more likely to engage in positive decision-making.

RESULTS: Themes that emerged from the qualitative data include: “Thinking Differently”, “Parenthood”, “Making Decisions”, “Support System”, “Cycle of Teen Childbearing”, “Motivated to do better”, and “Stress”. Participants who completed the project demonstrated improvements in problem solving skills and resilience. Results of this project suggest that the problem-solving tool could provide another approach to helping teen mothers transition to parenthood, complete their education, achieve their personal goals, and make healthier decisions.

CONCLUSIONS: This individualized and developmentally appropriate approach is a promising method to improve teen mothers’ psychosocial outcomes. More research is needed with larger samples to evaluate outcomes of comprehensive, autonomy supportive programs that provide individual interventions focused on decision-making in areas where teen parenting is common.

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