Research Reaction Paper

Research Reaction
Psychosocial Development Based on Age of First Birth
PS315
Theories of Personality

Summary

Topic area:

Teenage pregnancy is one of the most common problems that are growing worldwide.   This condition is most predominant in developed countries like the U.S.   There are a number of factors responsible for teenage pregnancy.   For example, higher rates of poverty, lower education levels, etc.   This research reaction paper examines the psychological status; social relationships; and home, work, and parenting stress and satisfaction in their young adulthood for a sample of rural women who were teen mothers compared to their cohort who had their first child in their twenties.   Service providers need to understand psychosocial outcomes of first childbirth in order to more effectively meet the physical and mental health needs of all young mothers.

Hypothesis:

There was one hypothesis in this article.   Given the wide range of evidence illustrating negative consequences of teen motherhood, would be that early child bearers would suffer similar deficits in psychosocial domains.   Yet, while a few studies have looked at psychosocial adjustment in pregnant and parenting adolescents, existing research has rarely been longitudinal so this hypothesis has not been well tested.

Method:

In order to perform this experiment, Data for this research were drawn from two studies:   1.   The first, the Rural Adolescent Development Study (RAD), was a 5-year prospective longitudinal study of the antecedents of rural adolescent health and development starting in 1985.

2.   The second study was a young adult follow-up of participants from the RAD Project, begun in 1997.

The follow-up, the Evaluation of Rural Outcomes of Sexuality (EROS), by adding an additional wave of data collection in young adulthood (1997), made it possible to examine a sample of rural females longitudinally from junior high school and continuing through their mid-twenties... [continues]

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