Reducing Teen Pregnancy in the Emergency Department

Targeting High Risk Teens in the Emergency Department: A User-Informed, Theory-Based Intervention Using Text Messaging to Reduce Teen Pregnancy

This study will determine the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of an emergency department-based pregnancy prevention intervention targeting sexually active adolescent female emergency department patients.

Emergency Departments (ED) care for 15 million adolescents each year. Adolescents who use the ED are at particularly high risk of unintended pregnancy. To date, no intervention has successfully increased contraception use among this high risk, hard-to-reach ED population.

In this study, the investigators will conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial of a user-informed, theory-based, personalized, interactive, pregnancy prevention text messaging intervention (Dr. Erica) to determine its feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy. The investigators hypothesize that high risk adolescent female ED patients who receive Dr. Erica will more often initiate contraceptives than those females who receive standard discharge instructions alone.

At baseline and follow-up assessment at 3 months, participants will provide information regarding effective contraception initiation, any contraception at last intercourse, follow up with reproductive preventive health services, and contraception self-efficacy.

Inclusion Criteria:

• female emergency department patient
• age 14-19 years
• sexually active with males in the past 3 months

Exclusion Criteria:

• currently using any effective form of contraception
• do not own a mobile phone with texting
• are pregnant
• are too ill for participation per the attending physician
• are cognitively impaired
• do not live locally
• do not speak English
• want to "become pregnant in the next year"