Towards better practice in primary health care settings for young people

Abstract

Principles of better practice in promoting or delivering adolescent health care have strong face validity across a range of sectors and service types in a heterogeneous primary health care system. These principles are applied to varying degrees in a vast array of health and health promotion programs. Despite this, there is a clear need for impact and outcome evaluation among the majority of programs.

Young adults face major barriers to seeking help from mental health services

“…Age-appropriate care for young adults would involve general practitioners working together with mental health and substance use professionals and relevant support agencies, such as accommodation, education and employment services [2]. There is evidence that age-appropriate care leads to increased help-seeking behaviour among young people [41].…”

Early intervention services in youth mental health

“…To ensure the success of early intervention efforts, there is a need to develop youth-friendly services that address the barriers that inhibit or prevent young people from using mental health services and to develop points of service delivery that are welcoming to young people (Tylee et al, 2007). Principles that have been identified to guide the development and delivery of youth-friendly services include accessibility, evidence-based interventions, youth participation, inter-sectoral collaboration, professional training, quality improvement, evaluation and sustainability (Kang et al, 2006). Of course, early intervention services need to be adequately funded and supported to ensure that access to treatment and support for mental health problems is not compromised by a lack of staff or resources to meet the demand for services from young people and carers (Cosgrave et al, in press).…”

“…Recent reports suggest that early psychosis services can reduce delays in treatment (Melle et al, 2004) and improve a range of outcomes for young people in the short to medium term including retention in treatment, quality of life and satisfaction with treatment (Craig et al, 2004;Garety et al, 2006). Further research is required to examine the impact of early intervention for psychosis and other low-incidence disorders as well as more common disorders in young people (Gilbody, Bower, Fletcher, Richards, & Sutton, 2006;Kang et al, 2006).…”

How professional identity shapes youth healthcare

“…This follows the advice of Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003) who suggest that to understand identity in-depth, "we need to listen carefully to the stories of those we claim to understand and to study their interactions, the discourses and roles they are constituted by or resistand to do so with sensitivity for context" (p. 1190). Youth healthcare represents an appropriate context for this study because the promotion of youth health requires: prevention, early intervention, and connected care (NHHRC, 2009); interagency collaboration (Kang et al, 2006); as well as familiarity with medico-legal issues and patient services that are government-subsidised, and as such, likely to be accessible to young people (Chown et al, 2008). GPs were thus consulted to understand the ways in which they engage with young people, negotiate sociocultural and historical processes, and customise their professional identity accordingly.…”