Abstract

SOTO MARTINEZ, Oscar et al. Pregnancy in adolescence and knowledge about sexuality. Rev Cubana Med Gen Integr [online]. 2003, vol.19, n.6. ISSN 0864-2125.

A case-control study was conducted aimed at identifying the risk factors about sexual knowledge and pregnancy in adolescence. All the patients (37) aged 12-19 from "Emilio Daudinot" Polyclinic that got pregnant in 1998 (cases) and 37 adolescents (controls) that never were pregnant with the same age and from the same area than the cases were studied. The following variables were analyzed: optimum age for pregnancy, abortion as a contraceptive method and pregnancy complications in adolescence. Each adolescent answered a questionnaire. Data were processed in SPSS 9.0. The association significance was obtained by Mantell-Haenszel X2 test. A 95 % was prefixed for the confidence interval. The association degree was determined in the significant variables by the odds ratio. The lack of knowledge about the optimum age for pregnancy (OR 0.25 [2.51-19.76]), not ot know about the fertile days (OR 0.25 [0.08-0.832]), considering pregnancy as a sole responsibility of women (OR 3/12 [1.54-433]), beleiving that abortion is as a contraceptive method (OR 5,74 [2,14-15,42], and to ignore pregnancy complications (OR 2,74 [1,08-6,96]), proved to be significant in a bivariate way

Keywords : PREGNANCY IN ADOLESCENCE; SEX EDUCATION; PREGNANCY COMPLICATIONS; RISK FACTORS.