The medical and psychosocial impact of comprehensive care on adolescent pregnancy and parenthood.

To assess the medical and psychosocial effects of services provided by a comprehensive adolescent pregnancy and parenthood program, 125 adolescents who received care from a comprehensive program were compared with 135 adolescents who received care from community health providers. Few differences were found in pregnancy outcome measures. At 12 and 26 months after delivery, however, the intervention group scored significantly better on composite measures encompassing medical, psychosocial, and parenting events than did the comparison group, even after accounting for possible confounding factors. This suggests that comprehensive care has little effect on pregnancy outcomes for those adolescents who are already receiving prenatal and nutritional services, but does have a significant effect on events occurring during the first and second postpartum years.