OBJECTIVES: to investigate information on perception and behavior of pregnant adolescents and their families related to current pregnancy. METHODS: descriptive study involving 19 pregnant adolescents from 10 to 19 years old under prenatal care in the family health units located in the Chié Island in Recife, from August to September 2002, and 14 family members and caretakers of these adolescents. Two collection tools were used and open questions were submitted to content analysis. RESULTS: adolescents are under the care of their mothers (71.5%), experienced their first sexual intercourse with their boyfriends (85.7%) when they were between 10-14 years old (52.7%) using contraceptives (68.4%) and have been pregnant before (42.1%). Half of them accepted their current pregnancy, 78.5% receive financial and psychological support from the child's father and 57.2% from their mother. Before becoming pregnant 10.5% were not going to school or held a job, currently 57.9% are in this condition. Their caretakers are women, 21.4% illiterate and 64.3% support them. When informed of the pregnancy they were happy/satisfied (35.7%) and unhappy (28.5%), 92.9% accepted the fact. CONCLUSIONS: pregnancy during adolescence is not always perceived as a problem and that reinforces the value of designing prevention strategies considering local reality.
Pregnancy in adolescence; Comprehensive health care; Evaluation
