KNOWLEDGE ATTITUDE AND INTENTION OF PREVENTING THE UNWANTED PREGNANCY AMONG FEMALE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN BANGKOK THAILAND

Abstract

The aims of this cross sectional study were to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and intention of preventing the unwanted pregnancy; and to determine factors associated to them among female undergraduate students. The multistage sampling technique was used to recruit and self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data of 440 female students. Data analysis by Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, spearman’s correlation and multiple linear regression. The results indicated that 42.5% of students had poor level of knowledge and only 20.9% had high knowledge about unwanted pregnancy. In term of attitude, 79.3% of them had moderate attitude towards the unwanted pregnancy. Nearly 70% of them intended to prevent unwanted pregnancy at moderate level. The statistically significant correlation between knowledge and intention (Spearman's correlation = 0.199, p < 0.001) was found. In multiple linear regression models, types of living arrangement (p = 0.043), the method used to prevent pregnancy (p < 0.001), frequency of alcohol consumption (β = -0.66, p < 0.001) and knowledge (β = 0.48, p<0.001) were statistical significantly associated with intention. In conclusion, the findings from this study highlighted the need to provide more education program emphasizing the knowledge about unwanted pregnancy to students to improve young people's long-term potential by avoiding early and unwanted pregnancies.