title: Obtaining a sexual history from adolescent girls. A preliminary report of the influence of age and ethnicity.
abstract: This preliminary study was undertaken to explore the hypothesis that socioeconomic and racial, as well as medical, factors influence the physician's decision about obtaining a sexual history from an adolescent female. Sixty consecutive medical records of adolescent-age emergency room patients with acute abdominal pain were classified according to ethnic group and socioeconomic status and searched for evidence that a sexual history had been taken. The study revealed a much higher number of recorded sexual histories among blacks and Hispanics. Although the absence of such a history seemed to have little relationship to diagnostic accuracy, a sensitive selectivity in exposing acutely ill teenagers to possible embarrassing questions appeared to be reserved for white, middle-class teenagers.
authors.affiliation: Mercer University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Hunt
authors.forename: I F
authors.initials: IF
authors.lastname: Litt
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Loebner
mesh_terms: D000005:Abdomen; D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008487:Medical History Taking; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States