Adolescent health services and contraceptive use.

Abstract

A pilot study of a health services program for never-pregnant high-school students, which stresses development of incentives for personal involvement in their own health care, reports a low incidence of unintended pregnancy among girls who requested contraceptives. The social and emotional characteristics of those who continued contraceptive use are compared with the small group who had uninteneded pregnancies.

Self-reports of emotional distress in a sample of urban black high school students

“…The HSCL-90 indicated significant differences among the groups studied (Jacobs et al 1974;Rickels et al 1976;Hesbacher et al 1978;Huggins et al 1979;Winokur et al 1979;Freeman et al 1980). The opportunity to conduct a prevalence study of emotional distress in an adolescent group arose in conjunction with an educational outreach programme offered by the Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology of a large university in the health classes of several neighbouring public high schools (Dickens et al 1975;Mudd et al 1978). This paper reports the results of this study of 607 urban black high school students as self-assessed with the HSCL.…”

Oral contraceptive use among African American adolescents: Individual and community influences

“…Oral contraceptives are the most commonly used method of birth control in the United States and studies suggest they are especially popular among African American adolescents (Morrison, 1985;Mudd et al, 1978;Zelnick & Kantner, 1980). Despite the pill's widespread acceptance as well as the reduced links with breast cancer and cardiovascular problems, many oral contraceptive users experience uncomfortable side effects and remain fearful of the method's health risks.…”