Caring for the adolescent drug user.
Adolescence as a social and individual process provides a challenge to the teenager with subsequent situational and maturational crises. The discomfort of change promotes alleviation, and in the limited resource of the adolescent, this may involve drug use. The physician must understand the adolescent and his adolescence in order to effectively intervene. This may be accomplished through a systematic evaluation of the problem, the teenager, and subsequently himself.
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy