Towards better practice in primary health care settings for young people.
OBJECTIVE
To identify and describe elements of accessibility and other dimensions of quality of primary health care for Australian young people.


METHODS
Five sampling frames identified relevant services and programs across New South Wales (NSW) which were then selected using purposive, convenience or snowball sampling. In-depth interviews were conducted with senior staff members, tape-recorded, transcribed, entered into the qualitative software package NUD*IST and coded under seven theme headings.


RESULTS
Interviews with 77 services across five sectors in NSW identified seven principles of better practice in youth health. These were: accessibility, evidence-based practice, youth participation, collaboration, professional development, sustainability and evaluation. Accessibility was the principle most frequently addressed and evaluation was the least frequently addressed. Many seemingly effective programs and services had been minimally evaluated for impact or outcome related to young people's access or health.


CONCLUSIONS
Principles of better practice in promoting or delivering adolescent health care have strong face validity across a range of sectors and service types in a heterogeneous primary health care system. These principles are applied to varying degrees in a vast array of health and health promotion programs. Despite this, there is a clear need for impact and outcome evaluation among the majority of programs.
Kang
Melissa
M
Department of General Practice, University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital, New South Wales. mkang@med.usyd.edu.au
Bernard
Diana
D
Usherwood
Tim
T
Quine
Susan
S
Alperstein
Garth
G
Kerr-Roubicek
Helen
H
Elliott
Abigail
A
Bennett
David L
DL
D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009517:New South Wales; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care