Abstract

CERQUEIRA-SANTOS, Elder; PALUDO, Simone dos Santos; DEI SCHIRO, Eva Diniz Bensaja  and  KOLLER, Sílvia Helena. Early pregnancy: a contextual analysis about risk and protection. Psicol. estud. [online]. 2010, vol.15, n.1, pp. 72-85. ISSN 1413-7372.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-73722010000100009.

Early pregnancy has been widely understood as a risk factor, moreover, in some cases, it has been considering as a protective factor. Thus, more studies among this population should be done, looking for the variables involving such question. This exploratory-descriptive study had as aim to identify the existent differences among a group of adolescents that lived the pregnancy experience. Participants were 1015 low SES young people from Porto Alegre, aged between 14-24, males and females. A questionnaire with 109 questions was used asking about major domains of life: drug use, sexuality, religiosity, school. There were more females 52.3% than males 47.7% in the sample. Most of the participants already had their first sexual intercourse, 53.5%, most of them males (64.6%). The average for first sexual intercourse was lower for males (M=13.64; dp=1.7) than females (M=14.79; dp=1.4). Results indicate an expected rate of pregnancy and abortion for low SES young. We stress the low age for first sexual intercourse and the fact that ¼ of our sample has an irregular contraceptive method. We discuss about contraceptive method and abortion linked to the adolescents health.

Keywords : Pregnancy; adolescence; risk and protection.