Adolescence is a time of rapid physical, cognitive and psychosocial development that can be a source of health challenges. While many adolescents are generally healthy, others may face challenges such as mental health problems, sexual risk behaviors, substance use disorders, and chronic disease.

 

Adolescent Care Services are needed to prevent, identify and address these issues. They are also essential for promoting the development of young people and improving their health status.

 

Hospitals and other institutions provide adolescent care in a variety of ways, including adolescent clinics and specialized medical units (see Chapter 4). The Society for Adolescent Medicine has developed guidelines for the care of adolescents in hospitals so that those with the greatest expertise in and awareness of developmental issues pertinent to adolescence can be involved with young people's care (Fisher and Kaufman, 1996; Macfarlane and Blum, 2001). In addition, the National Network of Children's and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospitals has established adolescent inpatient units to serve the needs of adolescent patients who have acute or chronic conditions.

 

Safety-net health centers provide critical primary care services for underserved populations of adolescents who are often uninsured, have low incomes, or lack access to other services. Nevertheless, these centers often have limited resources to address the range of health problems that adolescent patients commonly experience, particularly in areas of mental health, sexual and reproductive health, oral health, and substance use treatment and prevention.

 

Group plans and managed care organizations have recognized the importance of providing primary care services that are specially tailored to adolescent patients' needs, and they often include providers with special expertise in adolescent health. They also tend to offer opportunities for adolescents and their parents to establish relationships with providers who are sensitive to adolescent concerns and promote open communication.

 

School-based health centers are a potential option for delivering adolescent primary care to high-risk adolescents who do not have access to or find private office-based services acceptable for their needs. However, there is considerable debate about the quality of these services and their impact on the overall health of the adolescent population.

 

The delivery of adolescent care in school-based health centers is challenging due to several factors, including the diversity of adolescent populations served, the complexity of adolescent behavior, and the limited availability of resources. Additionally, adolescent-specific services are difficult to deliver in settings where adolescents spend a significant proportion of their time outside of the health center setting.

 

In addition, there is evidence that Adolescent Care services in school-based health centers are not effectively linked with other community-based health care settings. This is especially true for adolescents with comorbid health conditions, who have difficulty integrating their adolescent health problems into routine medical care.

 

To effectively meet the health needs of adolescents, adolescent care services must be based on the principles of accessibility, acceptability, ap propriateness, effectiveness, and equity. The World Health Organization has defined these as five objectives that health systems should be designed to achieve in order to promote adolescent-friendly health services. In addition to these criteria, the context in which adolescent care is delivered and the nature of the adolescent population are important considerations. Check out this related post to get more enlightened on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescence.