Socioeconomic Status, Perceived Social Support, and Perceived Stress among Pregnant Teenagers at Naguru General Hospital in Nakawa Division, Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status, perceived social support and perceived stress among pregnant teenagers. A quantitative correlation research design was used with a sample size of 165 pregnant teenagers from Naguru Teenage Centre in the Nakawa division of Kampala district in Uganda. A systematic random sampling strategy was used to select study participants. Pearson’s Correlation Analysis was used to examine the first three hypothesis and then linear regression analysis was used to test the fourth hypothesis. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science IBM SPSS statistics version 23 (IBM, 2015). The study findings revealed no significant relationship between all the variables for socioeconomic status and perceived social support among Pregnant Teenagers r (0.130) p > 0.05, Socioeconomic Status and perceived stress r(0.51), p> 0.05, perceived social support and perceived stress r (-.097) p > 0.05. Demonstrating that socioeconomic status does not seem to directly influence perceived social support or perceived stress levels nor does perceived social support directly relate to perceived stress in this study. These findings contribute to a basis for future studies to explore additional factors or variables that might mediate or moderate the relationship between SES, perceived social support, and perceived stress