An Exploration of the Relationships Between Health Promotion Practices, Health Work, and Felt Stigma in Families Headed by Adolescent Mothers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between stigma and health promotion in families with preschool children headed by adolescent mothers, by: (a) testing hypotheses derived from the Developmental Model of Health and Nursing, and (b) descriptively exploring the experience of stigma in a community sample of 63 adolescent mothers in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The mothers verbally responded to established measures of felt stigma, family health work, healthy lifestyle practices, and a demographic questionnaire during a structured interview. Then their experiences of stigma were explored during a brief dialogic interview. Consistent with the theory, a moderate positive relationship was observed between family health work and mothers' healthy lifestyle (r = .52, p < .001). Felt stigma was not related to either health work or global healthy lifestyle. Stigma did not appear to affect family health promotion efforts directly but influenced other aspects of the participants' lives in both positive and negative ways. Implications for practice and future research are identified.