AUTHOR=Fute Antony , Sun Binghai , Oubibi Mohamed 

TITLE=Early pregnancies among middle school students: Attribution of blame and the feelings of responsibility among teachers and parents

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.987520

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.987520

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Globally, 15% of adolescents give birth before turning 18, leading to considerable personal, social, and medical impacts on adolescents and to the general society.</p></sec><sec><title>Objective</title><p>This study aimed at exploring and comparing three psychological attributes (i.e., empathetic concern, feelings of responsibility, and attribution of blame) between parents and teachers for the phenomena.</p></sec><sec><title>Method</title><p>672 teachers (54% females) and 690 parents (53% female) participated in the study.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The results indicated a significant mean difference between parents and teachers on empathy (<italic>t</italic> = 5.735, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001), attribution of blame (<italic>t</italic> = 6.902, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001), and feelings of responsibility (<italic>t</italic> = 1.727, p &lt; 0.001). Except for attribution of blame, parents’ mean scores of other variables were higher than that of teachers.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>Teachers’ higher attribution of blame to pregnant adolescents and lower empathetic concern raises a prominent concern over students’ healthy environment at school.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Understanding social feelings about responsibilities over adolescents’ general health is very essential, especially for fighting against the problem of early pregnancy.</p></sec>