title: Adolescent pregnancy and associated factors in South African youth.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Adolescent pregnancy, occurring in girls aged 10-19 years, remains a serious health and social problem worldwide, and has been associated with numerous risk factors evident in the young people's family, peer, school, and neighbourhood contexts.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess the prevalence of adolescent pregnancy and associated factors in the South African context, as part of a population-based household survey that formed part of an evaluation of the impact of loveLife, South Africa's national HIV prevention campaign for young people.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional population-based household survey was conducted using a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling approach. The total sample included 3123 participants, aged 18-24, 54.6% men and 45.4% women, from four of nine provinces in South Africa (Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among female youth 19.2% said that they had an adolescent pregnancy, while 5.8% of male youth indicated that they had impregnated a girl when they were an adolescent (12-19 years), 16.2% of the women indicated that they ever had an unwanted pregnancy and 6.7% had ever terminated a pregnancy. In multivariable analysis among women it was found that being employed or unemployed, greater poverty, having higher sexually permissive attitudes and scoring higher on the contraceptive or the condom use index was associated with adolescent pregnancy, and among men wanting the pregnancy and having a sense of the future were associated with adolescent pregnancy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescent pregnancy was found to be high in this sample of South African youth. Multiple factors contributing to adolescent pregnancy have been identified which can be used in targeting young people on the prevention of adolescent pregnancy.
authors.affiliation: HIV/AIDS, TB and STI Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria and Durban, South Africa.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mchunu
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Peltzer
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tutshana
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Seutlwadi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D017280:Condoms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000208:ethnology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D012747:Sexual Partners; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013019:South Africa / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescent pregnancy; South Africa; loveLife youth programme exposure; youth between 18–24 years