Adomako Emmanuel Brenyah, Frimpong-Manso Kwabena, Munemo Petronella, Duah Henry Ofori, Agbadi Pascal
Department of Social Work, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
Heliyon. 2021 Feb 13;7(2):e06265. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06265. eCollection 2021 Feb.
The literature posits that HIV knowledge is associated with precautious sexual behaviour and practice. We hypothesised and investigated the association between knowledge of HIV transmission and adolescent pregnancy in Ghana, given that the relationship between HIV knowledge and adolescent pregnancy has not been extensively studied.
We did analyses on 5836 cases (weighted as 5121) of 15-24 years old reproductive age women in the female dataset of the 2017 Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey. Adolescent pregnancy was operationalized as reproductive age women between 15-24 years who became pregnant before the age of 18 years. Accurate HIV knowledge was measured by computing the scores of correct responses on six questions exploring women's knowledge about HIV transmission. We accounted for sample design and weight before performing a Chi-square test of independence and Poisson regression.
The results indicate that having lower scores on the HIV transmission knowledge scale was correlated with a higher probability of girls becoming pregnant before their 18 birthday. After controlling for the moderating effect of socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, we found that accurate HIV transmission knowledge loses its statistical significance in determining adolescent pregnancy. The factors that remain significant in the adjusted model were formal education status, household wealth, and region of residence. HIV transmission knowledge was statistically significantly related to adolescent pregnancy in the model after the education level variable was omitted. This observation was due to the significant effect of school education on other variables in the model. This result demonstrates that HIV knowledge has a major impact on adolescent pregnancy, but this effect is predicated by formal education attainment of the adolescent girl.
Given the results, adolescent pregnancy issues can be resolved by the government and other development partners by adequately educating adolescents about HIV transmissions. Also, because they have the potential to reduce pregnancy among adolescents in Ghana, we recommend that programs and initiatives should address existing disparities in formal educational attainment and household wealth.
文献表明，艾滋病病毒（HIV）知识与谨慎的性行为及实践相关。鉴于HIV知识与青少年怀孕之间的关系尚未得到广泛研究，我们提出假设并调查了加纳HIV传播知识与青少年怀孕之间的关联。
我们对2017年多聚类指标调查女性数据集中5836例（加权后为5121例）15 - 24岁育龄妇女进行了分析。青少年怀孕定义为15 - 24岁且在18岁之前怀孕的育龄妇女。通过计算关于女性对HIV传播知识的六个问题的正确回答得分来衡量准确的HIV知识。在进行独立性卡方检验和泊松回归之前，我们考虑了样本设计和权重。
结果表明，在HIV传播知识量表上得分较低与女孩在18岁生日前怀孕的可能性较高相关。在控制了参与者社会人口学特征的调节作用后，我们发现准确的HIV传播知识在确定青少年怀孕方面失去了统计学意义。在调整后的模型中仍然显著的因素是正规教育状况、家庭财富和居住地区。在省略教育水平变量后的模型中，HIV传播知识与青少年怀孕在统计学上显著相关。这一观察结果是由于学校教育对模型中其他变量的显著影响。这一结果表明，HIV知识对青少年怀孕有重大影响，但这种影响取决于青少年女孩的正规教育程度。
鉴于这些结果，政府和其他发展伙伴可以通过充分教育青少年关于HIV传播的知识来解决青少年怀孕问题。此外，由于它们有可能减少加纳青少年的怀孕情况，我们建议各项计划和举措应解决正规教育程度和家庭财富方面现有的差距。
