The influence of social‐developmental context and nurse visitation intervention on self‐agency change in unmarried adolescent mothers

Pregnancy among unmarried adolescents has been linked to negative personal control beliefs. In contrast, self‐agency beliefs about control over future possibilities have been linked to delay in subsequent childbearing. In this secondary analysis, we examined factors associated with self‐agency change in 429 unmarried adolescent mothers from intervention and control groups of a nurse home visitation study. Adolescent mothers who participated in a sustained relationship with a nurse made greater gains in self‐agency than did control group mothers (p = .034). Adolescents with lower cognitive ability who were behind their age‐appropriate grade level in school made the greatest self‐agency gains. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 36:158–170, 2013