(120) Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Factors Associated with Adolescent Pregnancy

Background: Adolescence entails a series of situations that can affect both the health of the mother and the child, and constitute a health problem, which should not be considered only in terms of the present, but also in the future, due to the complications it entails. The objective of this study was to identify sociodemographic and psychosocial risk factors (individual, interpersonal and contextual) common among adolescents undergoing a pregnancy of any gestational age, who come to the Hospital.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out. The study population consisted of adolescent patients treated at an urban academic hospital in the resolution of pregnancy or prenatal control. The selected population was surveyed on personal, interpersonal and contextual variables, through the Apgar Score, and using The National Survey Adolescents and the Stanley Coopersmith Self- esteem Inventory.

Results: A total of 400 patients who completed the questionnaire were included. The average age was 17.74 ± 1.65 years. A total of 221 patients were found between 16 and 18 years old, which represents 55.2% of the total sample. Regarding the family environment in which the patients we included in the study live, it was found that 177 of the cases had parents who were teenage parents. This means that being the child of teenage parents is a risk factor for this sociological phenomenon to occur in the next generation (p < 0.02), 99% of the cases share the house with their parents, in addition to 325 and 159 of the patients share the room and the bed respectively. Regarding the level of education of their parents and their partner, it was found that 51% (p < 0.04) had education up to high school. In 249 cases the level of study achieved in the patients was up to high school (p < 0.001) corresponding to 63%. The 59% of the cases mentioned having had more than one sexual partner, which represents a high risk of getting pregnant (p < 0.001), with the average start of an active sexual life being 15.5 ± 1.4 years.

Conclusions: It was found the same academic degree for both the adolescent mother, her family and her partner, the deficiency of contraceptive use despite their knowledge, having been born to adolescent parents, and having had several sexual partners as the factors of greatest risk for the incidence of adolescent pregnancy. The medium-low and low socioeconomic stratum were predominant, with a direct economic dependence on the parents. Early pregnancy is a trigger for school dropouts. Social, school, home and general self-esteem was not significant for any age group. In our population, the families were functional, and patients have a support network.