Mobile Emergency Care Service For Pregnant Adolescents: A Population-Based Study

Abstract

Background MECS (Mobile Emergency Care Services) are used worldwide as an effective means to increase the chances of good prognosis in emergency cases, working with anything from trauma cases to unusual risk situations; they enablea reduction in mortality ratesand length of hospital stay. This study aimed to investigate obstetric occurrences in adolescents performed by MECS. Methods This is a population-based study with 352 adolescent pregnant women (10 - 19 years old) treated by the public emergency mobile care system in a medium-sized city, Brazil. Descriptive analysis was performed using measurements of central tendency and dispersion of the numerical variables and the categorical variables, and using these measurements the frequency of occurrences was verified. Additionally, a two-stage cluster analysis was performed to identify divisions in the starting group based on the obstetric characteristics of pregnant women. Results The prevalence of occurrences with adolescents was 28%, corresponding to 352 of the 1258 pregnant women. Among the services provided to pregnant women, the average age of the patients was 17 yearsold (± 1.53). The cluster analysis identified a segmentation of the sample divided into two groups, the first consisting of adolescents with gestational age (GA) over 36 weeks and presenting as main complaints: childbirth, inter-hospital transfer and hypertensive syndromes; and the second composed of patients with less than 36 weeks of GA who complained of hemorrhagic syndromes, premature birth and lower abdominal pain. Conclusion MECS enable adequate and prompt care, which can reduce the consequences of complications for adolescent pregnant women and their babies, reducing mortality rates in developing countries.