일차의료에서 청소년 환자의 생활변화사건

Abstract

Background : This study was performed practicing primary care and was intended to find out their common disease types, contents of life change events, amount of stress and family functions among adolescent patients visiting outpatient departments of family medicine. It can develop an app-roach to adolescent patients and provide basic data to evaluate associations between disease and stress.

Methods : Self-administered questionnaire consisting of reasons for visits, 45 life change events and 20 family functions was completed by adolescents aged 13 to 19 who visited 2 outpatient departme-nts of family medicine from Dec. 1993 to Aug. 1994 while they were waiting to see their family docotrs.

Results : Of the total 184 subjects, males were 111 and females were 73. The most common reason for visit was physical complaint and the most common symtom was headache. The most common diagnosis was functional gastrointestinal disease. The most frequent life change event was 'easy distraction due to day dreaming and spurious thoughts.' 'School problems and anxiety about carrier planning' was the most frequent category among 8 categorized life change events. 'Death of sibling' and 'acquiring visible deformity' received the highest scores in life change units. The most common family function type was categorized as rigid in adaptability and disengaged in cohesion. Balanced families were 13.3%, - mid-range 50.0%, and extreme 36.7%, respectively. There were no differences between groups with or without some diagnosis of physician in numbers of life change events, amount of stress and family functions.

Conclusion : Most of the adolescent patients' diseases in this study were problems that could be managed in priamry care, and many of them required biopsycosocial approaches. The assessment of life change events, amount of stress and family functions of adloescent patients in the outpatient department is considered to be helpful to understand adolescent patients.