“It Was Just Really Hard to Be Pregnant in a Smaller Town …”: Pregnant and Parenting Teenagers’ Perspectives of Social Support in Their Rural Communities

Lauren Baney (), Alison Greene, Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin, Jonathon Beckmeyer, Brandon L. Crawford, Frederica Jackson, Lisa Greathouse, Dechen Sangmo, Michaella Ward and Susan Kavaya
Additional contact information
Lauren Baney: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Alison Greene: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Jonathon Beckmeyer: College of Applied Human Sciences, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Brandon L. Crawford: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Frederica Jackson: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Lisa Greathouse: Community Health, Indiana University Health, Bloomington, IN 47401, USA
Dechen Sangmo: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Michaella Ward: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Susan Kavaya: School of Public Health, Indiana University-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 24, 1-13

Abstract: Teenage pregnancy has a history of being a “social problem” in the United States, with there being higher rates in rural communities. Social support, a contributor to improving mental health outcomes, can significantly impact a teenager’s pregnancy and parenting experience. Using House’s (1981) social support framework, this study explores the teenagers’ perceptions of how their rural community reacted and responded to them as pregnant and parenting teenagers. The results were formulated through the thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews (n = 26) with current and former pregnant and/or parenting teenagers. The participants reported experiencing both positive and negative social support. There were more reports of emotional support and instrumental support among the forms of positive support than there were in the other categories. Informational support was lacking. The appraisal support from community members was negative. There is a need for rural communities to develop effective social support strategies to provide positive support for pregnant and parenting teenagers.

Keywords: teenage pregnancy; rural communities; qualitative research; social support; emotional support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16906/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16906/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:24:p:16906-:d:1005294

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().