[Interactions between teenagers and general practitioners during consultations: progression of felt disquiet and impact of physicians' training. SOCRATE 1 study].
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed at assessing the frequency of adolescents'ill-being beyond their complaint during a general practitioner's (GP) consultation, analyzing the progression of their feeling during an ordinary consultation, comparing it to the physician's feeling and checking whether this feeling could correlate a short and specific training received by the physician.


METHODS
53 physicians were divided into 2 groups: 29 physicians experienced with adolescents and 24 control physicians from a non-adjacent department. 665 consultations involving adolescents aged 12-20 years were analyzed using 2 questionnaires filled in by adolescents before and after the consultation as well as a questionnaire filled in by physicians at the end of the consultation.


RESULTS
Among adolescents consulting for "non-psychological" complaints, one out of six acknowledged having other problems. Sixty percent of them considered talking about these problems during the consultation. During a single GP's consultation, the adolescents'sensation of feeling good about themselves, being understood and listened to significantly improved. However, such an improvement did not depend on the physician's experience in adolescents. Nevertheless, experienced physicians are more circumspect than control physicians regarding the level of well-being felt or put forward by adolescents.


CONCLUSIONS
The study reveals that a short awareness program is sufficient to sustainably draw general practitioners' attention on teenagers' disquiet, but insufficient to induce an improvement of teenagers' feeling, which is anyhow recorded during a consultation. Measuring an impact on teenagers requires a probably more thorough training for physicians and a longer-term analysis by teenagers.
Binder
Philippe
P
Groupe ADOC, 1, allée des Tilleuls, 17430 Lussant, France. groupadoc@orange.fr
Jouhet
Vianney
V
Valette
Thierry
T
Goasdoué
Elen
E
Marcelli
Daniel
D
Ingrand
Pierre
P
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult