Pathology in the "healthy" female teenager

Perceived-Benefit-of-Drinking Scale: approach to screening for adolescent alcohol abuse

An index that measures adolescents' perceived benefits of drinking, the self-administered Perceived-Benefit-of-Drinking Scale, has been tested on a high school population. Results indicate that the instrument is practical and that it generates a scalable, reliable, and valid measure of reasons for drinking. The scale's strong relationship with other drinking behavior indicators makes it a potentially useful clinical screening device because it can serve as a proxy measure to assess the drinking behaviors of adolescents.

The identification of adolescent substance abuse by health care professionals

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the frequency with which health care professionals identify alcohol and drug problems in an adolescent clinic population. The results indicated that the health care professionals were apt to judge far fewer adolescents as having an alcohol/drug problem than as having other problems common to this age group. Furthermore, adjusted citywide prevalence rates of adolescent alcohol abuse (12.7%) exceeded health care professionals' judgments (3.0%) by over fourfold.

Contraceptive counseling for the younger adolescent woman: a suggested solution to the problem

The younger adolescent woman seeking contraceptive counseling presents clinicians with special problems specific to her age group. These include long-term physiological considerations plus psychological and social dynamics. An individualized clinic program, with emphasis on backup contraceptive methods, is suggested as a comprehensive solution.