title: Pregnancy, contraception and emergency contraception: the language of urban adolescent young women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We sought to characterize how a group of urban adolescent females understands the domains of pregnancy, contraception, and emergency contraception (EC).
  
  
  METHODS
  We used the research strategy of freelisting as part of an in-depth interview study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Urban adolescent females presenting to a Pediatric Emergency Department. Participants were enrolled using a purposive sampling strategy if they were black, English-speaking females, 15-19 years old, who resided in 1 of 11 zip codes surrounding the hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  Smith's saliency score. Freelists were analyzed for the entire sample, as well as for subgroups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty adolescents completed the interview. We found that this group of adolescents uses different words to characterize the domains of pregnancy, contraception, and EC. The only overlapping salient term was "abortion," which appeared in the overall lists for pregnancy and EC and in the younger group's list for contraception. In addition, lack of knowledge was cited as an important factor related to contraception.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescent patients may not fully understand the concepts of contraception and EC. Providers should consider the potential need to provide an explanation for terms used, and they should consider explicitly differentiating between routine forms of contraception and EC, as well as between EC and abortion.
authors: The Division of Emergency Medicine, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. mollenc@email.chop.edu
authors: C J
authors: CJ
authors: Mollen
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Fernando
authors: K L
authors: KL
authors: Hayes
authors: F K
authors: FK
authors: Barg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D003267:Contraception / Q000523:psychology*; D044363:Contraception, Postcoital / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007802:Language; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000523:psychology*; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult