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  • Title: Physicians' preferences for adoption, abortion, and keeping a child among adolescents.
    Author: Powell V, Griffore RJ, Kallen DJ, Popovich SN.
    Journal: Res Sociol Health Care; 1991; 9():33-47. PubMed ID: 12317575.
    Abstract:
    January-March 1985 data from 118 physicians practicing in 2 US midwestern states were analyzed to determine their preferences for adolescents who must make decisions about their pregnancies. They limited the pregnancy outcomes to abortion, adoption, and keeping a child. Overall, physicians ranked adoption as the preferred option in all 3 vignettes. Age did not affect their preferences greatly. They were more likely to rank adoption as their 1st preference when the fictional circumstances included a 15-year old girl (gestation age 6 weeks), uninformed parents, child's father not revealed, no desire to contact the father, not ready for parenthood, and wants to have the child adopted. General practitioners ranked abortion 1st followed by adoption and keeping the child. Family practitioners, obstetrician- gynecologists, and pediatricians ranked adoption 1st then abortion and keeping the child. Yet most pregnant 15-19 year old adolescents (93% in 1982) keep their children. This disjunction between physicians' preferences and patients' actual choices indicated that the physicians counseling was not effective in affecting adolescents' choices. Other research with adolescent mothers showed that most mothers did not seriously think about putting their children up for adoption at any time during their pregnancies. They tend to make a decision on what to do with the child either before pregnancy or very early in pregnancy. So adolescent mothers may not take physician advice for adoption seriously. They also tend to be more concerned about powerful sources of influence including the adolescent's mother, her partner, her future plans, or other goals for herself and her child than considering the physicians' advice. Due to the apparent limited influence physicians have on adolescent patients, they should provide them with counseling on prenatal care and parenting.
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