Never-pregnant adolescents and family planning programs: contraception, continuation, and pregnancy risk

Four hundred urban Black teenagers enrolling in a family planning program before pregnancies occurred were followed for one year to assess factors influencing continuation of contraceptive use. Over half the follow-up respondents claimed to always use contraception. Program discontinuers were less likely to use contraception, but nearly half had no sex activity when contacted at follow-up. Sex frequency reported in the sample was low. Background factors of age, grade, and household were associated with contraceptive use and with pregnancy. Girls who had pregnancies were significantly more likely to live in a single-parent household, to have sex more frequently, and to have stated at enrollment that they wanted their first child before age 20. A majority of the sample, nearly all of whom obtained oral contraception, did not know at the one year follow-up how to use any alternative methods for preventing conception, hence many would again be at risk of pregnancy when sex activity resumed.