Teenage Pregnancy and Prevalence of Abortion among In-school Adolescents in North Central, Nigeria
This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in public secondary schools in Ilorin to determine pregnancy outcomes among adolescents. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 521 respondents for the study. The research instrument was a semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire.All respondents were between 10-19 years (Mean=15.84+2.269) with 53% being males. About one third (28.2%) of all the respondents were sexually active; 63.9% were males and 36.1% were females. Female respondents who had ever been pregnant constitute 5.7% of all sexually active female respondents while 17% of all sexually active males had ever impregnated a girl. Abortion prevalence was 100% for females while 87.5% of males that have ever gotten a girl pregnant told the girls to abort the pregnancies. All the abortions were induced and done by unqualified personnel.Youth programmes should be designed to provide adolescents with adequate knowledge on reproductive and sexual issues including pregnancy prevention.