Sociodemographic and obstetric characteristics of pregnant adolescents attending prenatal care at basic comprehensive health care teams in an urban and rural community in Costa Rica

Aim: To describe the sociodemographic and obstetric characteristics of a group of pregnant adolescents who attend prenatal care in the Comprehensive Basic Health Care Team (EBAIS – Equipos Básicos de Atención Integral en Salud) in an urban and rural community of Costa Rica.

Methods: A qualitative cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in rural (Golfito) and urban (Alajuelita) communities in Costa Rica. The study population consisted of all pregnant adolescents who met the following inclusion criteria: being under 20 years of age, attending prenatal care at the EBAIS of the study communities, and signing the assent or informed consent. To collect the information, each pregnant adolescent was visited at their residence, an interview was carried out, and the data collection instrument developed for this purpose was completed. The information was entered into a database created using the Excel 2007 program of Microsoft Office, which was used to generate descriptive statistics.

Results: A total of 56 pregnant adolescents participated (14 in rural areas and 42 in urban areas), with an average age of 17 ± 1.5 years, most of them are Costa Rican, single, have not completed their secondary studies, and are engaged in domestic activities. 26.8% of adolescents had previous pregnancies, on average they started prenatal care at 10.9 ± 5.6 weeks of pregnancy and the majority (73.2%) started the check-up during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Conclusions: The results of this study offer an approximation of the sociodemographic and obstetric aspects of pregnant adolescents who attend prenatal care in rural and urban communities in Costa Rica, this shows that most of them began their prenatal control in the first trimester of pregnancy, a fact that allowed them to receive health care aimed at health promotion and disease prevention.