| Abstract: | Pregnancy status was examined in this study of 590 rural and 377 urban married women 15-45 years old from the northern Mindanao region of the Philippines. Pregnancy status was measured in terms of a Likertlike format of 32 statements pertaining to opinions on physical appearance, health concerns during pregnancy, attitudes of husbands and family members, and social activities during pregnancy. 16 items were identified by factor analysis as appropriate indicators. Status is related to the social benefits derived from the pregnancy period as a benefit with costs. Perception of pregnancy is related to unwanted births. Principal component analysis lead to the characteristics of SELF, which reflects feelings about self and how others relate to her pregnancy; WANT, which indicates the desires that influenced her pregnancy; and OTHERS, which reflects her feelings about how others treat her. Pregnancy Status Index Scores (PSINDEX) was a computation of the sum of scores for each variable divided by the number of items answered. The Eigenvalue for the 3 components accounted for 51.3% of the variance. The results showed that rural women had higher evaluations for all 3 components of PSINDEX, which means that pregnancy is seen as a beneficial means to improve marital and social relations as well as personal importance. SELF was the moist important category for both urban, (4.54) and rural women (4.65). Urban residents who considered SELF more important tended to be younger, less well educated, less modern, and less socially well off. In the bivariate analysis, findings indicated that rural women who were lower socioeconomically and had less education had a higher regard for pregnancy and a more positive attitude. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that PSINDEX, number of live births, number of years married, and a woman's educational attainment had significant effects on unwanted births. The maximum likelihood estimates indicated a good fitting model with an index of .997 and Chi square with 10 degrees of freedom of 6.80 (P.44). Among rural residents, the number of live births (path of .505) and pregnancy status (path of .109) had a direct effect on unwanted births. The higher the score on PSINDEX the lower the probability of having 1 or more unwanted births. In urban areas, education had a direct effect on unwanted births. Women who had been married longer, had less education, and fewer children were associated with pregnancy as an important factor in unwanted births. The rural model explained only 29% of the variance, while for the urban model 61%. Further exploration is recommended. |
