미혼모의 임신경험에 관한 탐색적 연구

The Study on the Pregnancy Experiences of Unmarried Mothers

The pregnancy experiences of unmarried mother threatens womens' health by social prejudices. This study was motivated by the fact that nurses do not have much understanding of the pregnancy experiences of unmarried mother and cannot provided fully supportive care of them. This study was done to understand the subjective expriences of pregnancy by unmarried mother. To do this, the grounded theory methodology was used. The research participants were selected from unmarried mothers admitted to the social welfare center in Korea. All interviewee were six and between 17 to 24 years old women. Their confidential information was insured. The data were analyzed in the framework of Grounded Theory methodology as mapped out by Strauss(l991). 21 concepts, 11 sub-category and 6 category were confirmed in the analysis. In the process of data analysis, 'sufferd pregnancy process' was founded to be the core phenomenon. In Conclusion, through their suffered pregnancy experiences, unmarried mothers had been a process to grow up, planned for the future and became a mature woman. This study supports the need to develop a role model for nurses in providing appropriate support to the unmarried mother, which will lead to an improvement in the physical and mental health of the unmarried mothers.