Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
89th EGPRN Meeting, 17 - 20 Ekim 2019
Background:
All children can access all levels of state health-care without gate-keeping and charge-free. Primary Care
physicians and nurses are mandated to do well-child visits. Yet, many parents, prefer private practices of
pediatricians. In spite of this buffet of health-care opportunities, adolescents’ health needs might be partially
unmet which may result in poor adult health outcomes.
Research questions:
Which health needs of adolescents, newly registered to a training primary care centre, are unmet?
Method:
All children, 0-18 years of age and caregivers who are newly registered to a recently established training
primary health-care center were invited in this descriptive study. Care-givers or if old enough the children were
interviewed face to face. A questionnaire, developed by the researchers based on well child visit guidelines
was used. Descriptive statistics of the data were calculated and chi-square, t-test were used in comparative
analysis by SPSS 11.5 program.
Results:
Three hundred and ninety-six children were enrolled, 133(33,5%) were aged 10-18. Majority of the
adolescents’ height-weight and blood pressure were not measured (67,7%, 81.2% respectively). They also
didn't receive any counseling about physical and sexual growth, nutrition, physical activity, reproductive health
and substance abuse (75.9%, 71.4%, 77.4%, 84.2 % and 88,0 respectively). Most of them were also not
counseled on injuries and violence as well (85,0%, 92,5% respectively). On the other hand, all small infants'
mandatory screening tests were done and 97% of the children had been fully vaccinated. Vaccination and well
child visits of small children are endorsed with negative performance by MoH.
Conclusions:
Offering various healthcare options doesn't meet adolescents’ health needs. Services which are being
endorsed by MoH were almost fully covered. Endorsement of counseling topics and encouraging primary care
workers to use adolescents’ sick visits as an opportunity for preventive services might be offered.