Unplanned pregnancies among students are increasing annually. There are cases of students giving birth by themselves in the rooms within higher education institution residences unsupervised. Unsupervised births put the students at health risk as birth can complicate or even lead to death. The purpose of this study was to explore the perinatal experiences of undergraduate students whilst a pregnant student. In this study the researcher used a qualitative phenomenological approach within interpretive realism. The study was exploratory focusing on the need to understand how students experience perinatal care. Population for this study comprised of undergraduate students that had been pregnant within their undergraduate program which normally takes three to four years and were staying in the higher education institution residence at the time of pregnancy. A snowball sample was used. Data was collected from participants using unstructured in-depth interviews. For the study a total of 9 students were interviewed. Data was collected in English and Xhosa depending on preference. During pilot interviews the researcher established that the participants had difficulty in expressing themselves in English and used slang in spite of being registered for a degree. The interviews were conducted by the researcher and the data tape recorded. Permission to conduct a study at the higher education institution was sought from the Vice- chancellor, the Dean of Students and Research Ethics Committee To ensure trustworthiness of the study credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability were adhered to. Four themes with several sub-themes emerged which were: Dynamics on awareness about existence of pregnancy. Support system for female students pertaining to reproductive health. Encountered psychosocial experiences. Coping strategies used by pregnant students. Excerpts were used to support the interpretation of perinatal experiences of the undergraduate students. Recommendations to the management of the higher education institution are to develop guidelines that ensure implementation of the pregnancy policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:11913 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Simandla, Linda |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science & Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc (Nursing Science) |
| Format | 79 leaves; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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