Health care seeking behavior of adolescents: comparative study of two service delivery models.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: 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). CONCLUSION: 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.