Construção de domínios do Event History Calendar: Elementos metodológicos da Teoria Fundamentada nos Dados construtivista

Introduction: Event History Calendar (EHC) is a healthcare tool, arranged in columns and rows; the latter reflect the domains of this tool and can be translated into activities, behaviors, and/or events in peoples’ lives. Goal: To present methodological elements involved in the process of building EHC domains for adolescent mothers. Methods: This is a qualitative study conducted in a medium-sized Brazilian municipality with eleven adolescent mothers of children under two years of age. Data collection and EHC domain building were based on elements of the constructivist Grounded Theory (GT). Data collection used the snowball technique associated with theoretical sampling. Six reference chains and three sample groups of adolescent mothers were constructed. This analytical process used initial line-by-line coding, focused coding, constant comparison, memo writing, diagram making, and theoretical sampling. Five core categories and 20 subcategories were built. Results: When designing the tool proposal, we built the EHC domains by analyzing the adolescent mothers’ speeches that revealed aspects about the care of the self and the care of the child, as well as factors involved in the care processes, especially support network, vulnerabilities, experienced situations and emotions. Conclusion: Methodological elements of constructivist GT provided a foundation to build EHC domains for adolescent mothers.