HEALTH LITERACY AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN TEENAGERS AND YOUNG ADULTS RESIDENT IN THE TRAIRI REGION OF THE RIO GRANDE DO NORTE STATE
Pregnancy in adolescence. Health literacy. Women. Prenatal care.
Literacy, which is the ability to use reading, writing, and calculations, is primarily comprised of early childhood educational contributions and is associated with poor health behaviors and outcomes at different stages of life from adolescence to old age. Low health literacy has been linked to risk behaviors, reduced self-care, higher hospitalization rates and higher health costs. Adolescents living in rural areas and from the lower socioeconomic strata have low access to quality education, health care and little knowledge about the adverse effects caused by early life-long pregnancy. Poor literacy in reproductive health may increase the chances of teenage pregnancy, and consequently lead to dropout, resulting in a vicious cycle of generational teenage mothers in society. Objective: To evaluate the health literacy of adolescent and young adult pregnant women in a rural area of northeastern Brazil and the associated factors. Methods: This is an observational and analytical cross-sectional study, which is part of a longitudinal pilot study, AMOR (Adolescence and Motherhood Research). The sample consisted of 50 adolescent pregnant women (13 to 18 years old) and 50 young adult pregnant women (23 to 28 years old) living in the Trairi region, located in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, who were pregnant for the first time. Data collection was performed following a standardized protocol: sociodemographic data evaluation, pregnant woman's card evaluation regarding the follow-up of the Ministry of Health's prenatal recommendations, social support evaluation through the Social Networks and Social Support of the International Mobility in Aging Study (SNSS-IMIAS) and the assessment of health literacy through the Short Assesment of Health Literacy for Portuguese-Speaking Adults - (SAHLPA-18). For the comparison between health literacy and sociodemographic variables, recommendations of the Ministry of Health for prenatal care and social support were used the T-Student test or Mann Whitney test for quantitative variables and Chi-square for categorical variables. Results: Eighty-six pregnant women participated in the study, where the highest proportion were adults (52.3%), women of brown / black race (65.9%), with self-perceived school performance compared to their peers equal or worse (54.7%), who consider their income sufficient (64.0%) and receive family allowance (65.9%). None of the pregnant woman's cards met 100% of the recommendations established by the Ministry of Health. Adult pregnant women had social support from their parents (p = 0.028) and friends (p = 0.010) and the health literacy level (p <0.001) was better than adolescent pregnant women. Conclusion: It was observed that there is a higher prevalence of inadequate health literacy in the group of adolescent pregnant women, demonstrating that these are the most affected by poor prenatal care, since the absence of health care in the pregnancy-puerperal period of this population may contribute to the poorer health outcomes found in this group compared to young adults.