Abstract

African American women represent a unique group of women in the United States and have a long history of lack of reproductive freedom. Slavery and forced procreation, sterilization abuses, the Eugenics movement, and federally mandated contraception have all impacted on African American women's independence in contraceptive decision-making. Given this population's history, it is important for healthcare providers to understand African American women's contraceptive decision-making, as women often seek their guidance. The purpose of this dissertation research was to discover the intergenerational influences on African American women's contraceptive decision-making. The specific aims of this study were to: (1) develop an understanding of African American women's contraceptive decision-making process; (2) identify the factors that influence their decision-making; and (3) develop knowledge that can be used to influence nursing practice. Included in this exploration were questions on the role of mothers and grandmothers in adolescents' decision-making, familial beliefs about contraceptive choices and whether societal and social factors continue to influence contraceptive decision-making in the 21st Century. For this work, I used a qualitative descriptive approach to develop an understanding of the phenomenon from the participants' worldview.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3318126; ProQuest document ID: 230676681. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Allyssa L. Harris, PhD, RN

Sigma Membership

Alpha Chi

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Qualitative Research

Keywords:

Birth Control and African American Women, Reproductive Freedom, Intergenerational Influences

Advisor

Joellen Hawkins

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

Boston College

Degree Year

2008

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2020-02-04

Full Text of Presentation

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