Health care seeking behavior of adolescents: comparative study of two service delivery models.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the perceived health problems and help seeking behaviour and utilization pattern of adolescent health clinics.


METHODS
A pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 360 school going adolescents who were selected by stratified random sampling from two sectors of Chandigarh where services were being provided by a school-based and dispensary-based adolescent health clinic.


RESULTS
Majority (81%) of the adolescents reported having some health problem during last three months prior to the survey; predominant (60%) problems were psychological and behavioural in nature. To resolve these problems boys consulted mainly friends/peers (48%) while girls consulted their mothers (63%). Compared to the dispensary-based adolescent health clinic, utilisation was significantly higher in a school-based clinic where proportion of psychological or behavioural problems reported was also significantly higher (P<0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Adolescents have greater counselling needs for psychosocial problems than for medical problems. School-based adolescent health clinic was utilized more often than the dispensary-based clinic particularly for psychosocial problems.
Kumar
Rajesh
R
Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh City, India. dr.rajeshkumar@gmail.com
Prinja
Shankar
S
Lakshmi
P V M
PV
D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010379:Peer Group; D012572:School Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires