2005/10/01 by Michele S M Yeo, Michele Yeo, Lyndal M Bond +3 · 3 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · #Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health #Adolescent medicine #Child and Adolescent Health #Documentation #Emergency medicine #Family medicine #Health Promotion and Cardiovascular Prevention #Hepatitis B #Internal medicine #Medical record #Medicine #Pediatrics #Psychiatry #Psychosocial #Retrospective cohort study #Specialty #Surgery
paper · doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb07110.x
openalex publication_date 2005/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
OBJECTIVE: To determine the extent to which comprehensive health screening of adolescents was undertaken in a tertiary inpatient setting. DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective review of 100 consecutive medical records of 13-18-year-old adolescents admitted to The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne (first 20 consecutive admissions in 2001 to each of five units--general medicine, adolescent medicine, specialty medicine, general surgery, and specialty surgery). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Documentation of screening for biomedical (height, weight, pubertal staging, and hepatitis B vaccination) and psychosocial concerns (HEADSS framework categorised into four screening levels--none, incomplete, adequate, thorough). Risks identified and actions taken. RESULTS: Weight was recorded for 98 patients, height for 17, pubertal staging for 12, and hepatitis B vaccination status for nine. Documentation of psychosocial screening was absent from 62 charts, inadequate in 29, thorough in three, and complete in seven charts. Adolescent medicine inpatients were more likely than patients in other units to have any screening of psychosocial risk recorded and more likely to be thoroughly screened (P < 0.005). Screening was more often documented for less sensitive issues (eg, home, tobacco) than higher risk behaviours (eg, illicit drug use) (P = 0.013). When screening identified risks, appropriate action was undertaken in most cases. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights deficiencies in comprehensive health screening in adolescents admitted to a tertiary children's hospital. These results support the development of more consistent approaches to screening adolescent inpatients.