Effectiveness of a School-Based Pregnancy Prevention Intervention for Female Teenagers and Their Boyfriends: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose: This study examined the effectiveness of a school-based pregnancy prevention intervention.Methods: 73 female and male teenagers were recruited from an urban secondary school and randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups. The females were aged 13-15 years, and the boyfriends were aged 13-18 years. The intervention was implemented in six sessions over six weeks. Sessions 1-4 were conducted at the school, and sessions 5-6 were delivered via a smartphone messaging application. The outcomes included sexual health literacy, pregnancy prevention behaviors, and sexual risk behaviors. They were measured three times: at baseline (week 0, T1), immediately post-intervention (week 6, T2), and follow-up (week 10, T3). Two-way mixed repeated measure ANOVA was used to determine the differences of the outcomes.Results: After completion of the intervention, participants in the intervention group had signifi-cantly higher sexual health literacy both at T2 and T3 and better pregnancy prevention behavior. They had lower sexual risk behaviors at T3 than the control group.Discussion: The results indicate that the school-based pregnancy prevention intervention is effective. It improved the outcomes in female teenagers and their boyfriends at six weeks and 10 weeks post-intervention.& COPY; 2023 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. All rights reserved.