Peer-reviewed article
Child Marriage in Health Psychology: A Narrative Literature Review
I Kadek Wahyu Pujhana ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This literature review examines child marriage through a health psychology lens, analyzing 26 peer-reviewed studies from 2016-2025. The review uses the theory of planned behavior to identify that permissive attitudes, social pressure, and low perceived control drive early marriage decisions. Child marriage causes serious harms including adolescent pregnancy complications, gender-based violence, depression, and anxiety. The authors argue that prevention strategies should focus on changing attitudes, challenging social norms, and building girls' behavioral control rather than addressing structural factors alone.
Key points
- Permissive attitudes toward early marriage, strong social pressure, and low perceived behavioral control are key contributors to child marriage
- Child marriage leads to adolescent pregnancy, childbirth complications, gender-based violence, and mental health issues including depression and anxiety
- Prevention strategies often focus on structural factors like poverty and education but overlook psychological influences
- Theory of planned behavior provides a framework for understanding psychological drivers of child marriage decisions
- Effective interventions should focus on reshaping attitudes, challenging social norms, and empowering girls with behavioral control
Limitations
This is a narrative literature review that synthesizes existing research rather than testing an intervention; it does not provide original data on intervention effectiveness or implementation outcomes in specific contexts.
Abstract
Child marriage is a public health concern that significantly affects the physical, mental, and social well-being of adolescent girls. While prevention strategies often target structural factors, such as poverty and education, they tend to overlook the psychological influences underlying early marriage decisions. This study explored child marriage from a health psychology perspective, using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as the primary analytical framework. A narrative literature review was conducted by analyzing 26 peer-reviewed articles published from 2016 to 2025. The findings revealed that permissive attitudes toward early marriage, strong social pressure, and low perceived behavioral control are key contributors to the persistence of the child marriage phenomenon. The consequences include adolescent pregnancy, childbirth complications, gender-based violence, and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. These insights underscore the importance of TPB-based interventions aimed at reshaping attitudes, challenging social norms, and empowering girls with behavioral control. This review offers a foundation for developing more effective and context-sensitive strategies to prevent child marriage through a health psychology approach.