FREE ESSAY ON ADDRESSING MACRO PERSPECTIVES OF SOCIETAL INFLUENCES IN RELATION TO TEENAGE PREGNANCY BY THE PROFESSIONAL THROUGH THE NURSING PROFESSION

ADDRESSING MACRO PERSPECTIVES OF SOCIETAL INFLUENCES IN RELATION TO TEENAGE PREGNANCY BY THE PROFESSIONAL THROUGH THE NURSING PROFESSION

ADDRESSING MACRO PRESPECTIVES OF SOCIETIAL INFLUENCES IN RELATION TO TEENAGE PREGNANCY BY
THE PROFESSIONAL THROUGH THE NURSING PROFESSION
"As your actions are informed by your awareness of values, your thinking and your ideas
are shaped and changed by your experiences with those actions (Chinn, 1995, p. 3)."
As a nursing professional, addressing the cause and not the symptoms of societal concerns
in relation to teenage pregnancy would be the ideal. In order for a profession to evoke
transition in this or any aggregate, it is important for that profession to correlate
those macro perspectives, which influence poor lifestyle choices and how these choices
may be approached in a health promotion perspective. It is the intent of this
dissertation to relate current statistical information, some societal factors involved in
the increased numbers of teenage pregnancy, and the nursing implications to this issue.
Despite education about birth control and the negative connotations in regards to
procreation in the adolescent, the number of teenage pregnancies in the United States are
very significant. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy that
approximately one million teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 get pregnant each
year in the 
United States and that nearly eighty percent (80%) of these pregnancies are to unmarried
teens. Move than one half of teen pregnancies end in birth and fewer teens choose
abortion or adoption. In the United States, teen pregnancies contribute to at least $7
billion in cost and the United States is ranked as having the highest rate of teen
pregnancy in the industrialized world (1998).
It has been noted that the educational success is significantly restrained by teenage
pregnancy for both the teen and her child. Jane Manlove states that less than one-third
of teens that begin families before the age of 18 ever complete high school and
approximately fifty percent (50%) of teen mothers that had quit school did so before
becoming pregnant and the other half dropped out after becoming pregnant. Children of
teen parents often do worse in school and are fifty percent (50%) more likely to repeat a
grade (1998).
With these statistics, the nursing professional addressing a macro perspective to the
issue would need to look at what are some of the influences, which increase teenage
pregnancy, specifically societal contributions. According to Nola Pender that health
promotion involves strategies related to an individual lifestyle and personal choices
made in a social context that have a strong influence over one's own health expectations
(1996). Keeping this ideal in mind and looking at 
some areas which may be addressed are the higher numbers of teenage pregnancy linked to
lack of education, self esteem uncertainties, lack of access to the health care delivery
system, relationships pressures, and access to medical expulsions of unwanted
pregnancies.
Looking at strategies to improve lack of education first, nurses should get involved in
the political arena to develop and encourage referendums in legislative policies to get
the needed education to the target population. This should be accomplished at the local,
state, and national levels to encompass that macro perspective. Nursing professionals
must maintain that professional status by presenting themselves as an advocate for those
aggregates in order to be recognized as an entity in support of their needs. 
School nursing is another venue where the community needs should be assessed and
addressed. According to Jennifer Frost and Jacqueline Darroch that school based programs
geared towards the sexual education of teens provide a natural laboratory for attempts to
change adolescent behaviour and efforts to document change. Students are a captive
audience for the intervention and can usually be re-interviewed one or more years after
the intervention without too much difficulty (1995). This research 
area may provide valuable information, which may be passed on to verify the need for this
aggregate.
The second societal influence to be addressed pertains to that of self-esteem
uncertainties. Many young females have reported the rationales behind their pregnancies
at such a young age to be related to a lack of self-esteem. Lack of self-esteem have been
related to feeling of being unloved by family members or significant others, inferiority
complexes, misunderstanding the female/male teenage role related to parenthood, and a
means of being in control of circumstances they have not been able to control in their
own lives. 
In a study conducted by Cynthia Connelly, she determined that low self-esteem factors
were present prior to pregnancy and once the teen became pregnant, self-esteem was
heightened (1998). Although this study was limited to obtaining data during the
gestational period of the sample group, it indicates an area in which the nursing
professional may develop appropriate and effective therapeutic interventions. Lois Bolden
and Barbara Williams found in a study of a measurement of self-esteem in pregnant
teenagers that consideration of the self-esteem of pregnant teenagers will enhance the
nurses' assessment and intervention with this vulnerable population (1995). Nursing needs
to bring about more research to determine 
what specific interventions provide the best results to address the societal influences
on these self-esteem considerations, as well as the familial implication, which impress
teenagers in decision making.
Third, when pursuing the nursing implications which apply to the lack of access to the
healthcare delivery system, the political arena is an effective means to invoke changes
in the organizations which direct and govern the availability to specific aggregates.
According to Ellen-Marie Whelan that community-based nursing can maximize primary care
and that lack of access to healthcare use fewer health services and have worse health
outcomes (1995). School nursing, family planning centers, and advanced nurse
practitioners may gather information to support the need of this aggregate. Nursing
research could help to influence where the community has a need for an increase in
healthcare facilities, organizations, and/or funding.
Forth, the issue of relationship pressures may also be looked at from a nursing
perspective. The transition from adolescent to adult is trying to say the least and with
little or no information to justify the feelings during this developmental stage, role
confusion is highly likely. The male desires to be a man and all that this entails, and
visas versa for the female. Sandra Hewell and Janet Andrews state that 
adolescents' difficulty in decision making and tend to have a personal fable that
protects them from negative events. This fable interferes with the adolescent's ability
to think in the long term and avoid risky behaviour (1996). 
Getting out into the community to present information related to education would be ideal
for the nursing professional. Again, school nurses should make themselves accessible to
this age group to have their needs met. Healthcare organizations can be made aware of the
need in communities to address these factors and to encourage health promotion and
prevention at all developmental age levels.
Finally, the issue of medical treatment in regard to unwanted teenage pregnancies is a
heated topic and there are two basic perspectives, that is: for or against. But one
should view teenage pregnancy on the macro level. For the nursing professional, this
means individuals should understand that this particular topic is a symptom to a much
greater condition, and that being teenage pregnancy. Individuals need to understand the
societal influences, which have created the pregnancy in the first place, that being many
of the same issues previously addressed (i.e. lack of education, self-esteem
uncertainties, lack of access to the healthcare delivery system, and relationship
pressures). 
In conclusion, with the large statistical numbers pointing to teenage pregnancy, the
nursing professional could make an impact by addressing those societal influences at the
macro level. According to Ann Tomey and Martha Alligood that nursing in Betty Newman's
systems model is concerned with the whole person, meaning all the variables affecting an
individuals response to stress and that the caregiver as well as the client's perception
must be assessed (1998). One should keep in mind the goal of Healthy People 2000/2010 and
develop a means to promote health lifestyle for teens, as well as the individuals who
have access to the healthcare system through acute/chronic health alterations. Teenagers
are an aggregate not to be forgotten by the nursing professional and there are many arena
in which teenagers needs may be addressing. Promote education in the homes, in the
schools, in the communities, in the government, and in the healthcare system. Do not be
silent.
Bibliography
References
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