Mental health problems among pregnant and non-pregnant youth

• Autor(a) principal: Caputo, Valéria Garcia
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: Bordin, Isabel Altenfelder
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Saúde Pública
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rsp/article/view/32269
• topic: Gravidez na adolescência^i1^spsicolo; Psicologia do adolescente; Psiquiatria do adolescente; Saúde mental; Estudos transversais; Depressão; Pregnancy in adolescence^i2^spsychol; Adolescent psychology; Adolescent psychiatry; Mental health; Cross-sectional studies; Depression

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of mental health problems in primiparous adolescents and to compare their mental health profile with the profile of sexually active adolescents who have never gotten pregnant. METHODS: Cross-sectional study that compared two groups of adolescents aged 13 to 17 years from a city in Southern Brazil, 2003-2004. The sample included 207 primiparous who attended prenatal care programs in urban public services, and 308 sexually active students from state public schools who had never gotten pregnant. A screening instrument to identify mental health problems in adolescents (Brazilian version of the Youth Self-Report) was applied to the participants together with a questionnaire on risk factors for pregnancy in adolescence. Statistical analysis included Chi-square tests, Fisher's exact test, Mann Whitney's U and logistic regression models. RESULTS: Pregnant and non-pregnant adolescents did not differ in the prevalence of total mental health problems (24.6% vs. 27.3%; p=0.50). Compared to the group of never pregnant adolescents, the group of primiparous presented higher prevalence of anxious/depressive symptoms (24.2% vs. 15.3%; p=0.01) and withdrawn/depressed symptoms (13.0% vs., 4.5%; p