PERSONALITY FACTORS, SELF-CONCEPT, AND FAMILY VARIABLES RELATED TO FIRST TIME AND REPEAT ABORTION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR IN ADOLESCENT WOMEN

This study compared personality factors, self-concept, and family backgrounds of three groups of adolescents: unwed girls seeking a legal abortion for the first time, unwed girls seeking a repeat abortion, and unwed girls who had never been pregnant. The purpose of the study was to show significant differences between these groups, predicting the greatest differences and higher pathology would occur in repeat-abortion adolescents. Subjects were 96 white, middle or upper-middle class adolescents between 13 and 19, from Fairfax County, Virginia. Thirty-four were first-time abortion-seekers; 31 were repeat abortion-seekers, and 31 were never-pregnant controls. Subjects were voluntary and given anonymity. The research design was descriptive and correlational. Data were collected from three instruments: (1) a 73-item questionnaire developed by the researcher; (2) the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS), and (3) the Kinetic Family Drawings (K-F-D). A discriminant analysis yielded the optimal combination of variables that best distinguished the groups, and were, in order of their magnitude: birth control frequency; father's warmth and support to mother; size of self-figure in K-F-D; father-figure involved with mother-figure in K-F-D; marital conflict; Identity subscale of TSCS; and knowledge of contraception. Results were significant at the .05 level. Using Chi-Square analyses and/or t-test comparisons, the following hypotheses were supported (p < .05): (1) First-time aborters report more loss (death) and transitional events than controls; (2) Repeat aborters manifest more clinical signs of instability and personality conflict than controls; (3) Controls manifest higher self-esteem than repeat aborters and higher social-self and total positive scores than first-time aborters; (4) Abortion-seekers, particularly repeat, indicate more uninvolved fathers, marital conflict, poor family communication, and family disengagements or enmeshments than controls. An hypothesis predicting higher sex guilt scores in repeaters was not significant (p > .05). Results of this study provided a profile of the adolescent most at risk to become a multiple-aborter. Personality/family dynamics correlating with repeat abortions were: parent's marital conflict; peripheral father; family either isolated or overly-close; poor communication; tense home atmosphere; death and/or losses; low self-concept; and psychological instability, with knowledge of sex and contraception but with a poor record of usage.