A retrospective evaluation of pregnant adolescents presenting to an emergency department

The purpose of this study was to evaluate demographic features, presenting complaints and outcomes of adolescent pregnancies admitted to the emergency department of a Turkish State hospital. The study sample included 1187 pregnant adolescents admitted to the emergency department of a state hospital. Data were collected with a form created by the researchers from the emergency department records and forensic records of the hospital. The pregnant adolescents presented to hospital with a wide range of complaints. The most frequent three reasons of presenting to the emergency department were abdominal pain, supervision of normal pregnancy and vaginal bleeding. More than half of them were discharged after their evaluation in the emergency department. In the study, it was determined that the use of the emergency department for non-emergency indications is widespread among adolescent pregnant women. These findings indicate that pregnant adolescents have unmet needs for reproductive health, especially antenatal care.