PREDICTING CONTRACEPTIVE VIGILANCE IN ADOLESCENT FEMALES - A PROJECTIVE METHOD FOR ASSESSING EGO DEVELOPMENT

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that ego development would predict con traceptive use. Problems in ego development were defined in terms of t hree factors: (1) realism, (2) complexity, and (3) discontinuity. Meth ods: Forty-one respondents aged 14-17 years were selected from a group of 233 adolescents who were administered a projective pregnancy scena rio and participated in a 12-month follow-up. Twenty of these adolesce nts were randomly selected from the group determined to be effective c ontraceptive users, while 21 were randomly selected from the group of poor contraceptors. Results: Chi-square test revealed a significant as sociation (p <.0005) between the composite ego maturity (EM) measure a nd contraceptive outcome (X(2) = 13.82. With df-1). Low scores on the ego maturity measure predicted poor contraceptive use. EM was unrelate d to age but was associated with race (X(2) = 7.535, .025 < p <.05). H owever, EM predicted contraceptive use when controlling for the effect s of race. Conclusions: A simple, time-efficient projective pregnancy scenario is an effective way of determining adolescent females at risk for poor contraceptive effectiveness and, therefore, untimely pregnan cy. These stories are analyzed using factors related to the ego develo pment of the adolescent. Subjects who scored lower on this measure hav e poor contraceptive effectiveness while subjects with higher levels d emonstrated effective contraception use, at 1-year follow-up. (C) Soci ety for Adolescent Medicine, 1997