Abstract

Globally, it is estimated that every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15 to 19 years and 2 million girls aged
under 15 years become pregnant. This poses a great public health concern due to its short and longer-term health
and social consequences. Though teenage pregnancy had poor maternal and perinatal health outcomes, its
magnitude and associated factors were not well understood in the study area. Thus, this study sought to determine
the prevalence of teenage pregnancy and associated factors among pregnant mothers presenting at Hoima Regional
Referral Hospital, Uganda (HRRH). A hospital based retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study was done in
January 2022 on 300 pregnant mothers who had attended antenatal care between July 2020 and June 2021. Data
were collected using a pre tested questionnaire, entered in computer and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Chi
squared analysis was used to determine strength of association between dependent and independent variables and a
p value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy in HRRH was 30.0%. Being
unmarried (X2=82.31, p=<0.001), Secondary education and below (X2=97.62, p=<0.001), Christian religion
(X2=14.29, p=<0.001), and contraceptive non-use (X2=38.09, p=<0.001) were found to have statistically significant
associations with teenage pregnancy. This study found that there is a high prevalence of teenage pregnancy in the
study area. Secondary education and below, contraceptive non-use, and being a Christian were found to have a
statistically significant association with teenage pregnancy.