Health risk screening in adolescents: Room for improvement in a tertiary inpatient setting

Abstract

Objective: To determine the extent to which comprehensive health screening of adolescents was undertaken in a tertiary inpatient setting. Design and setting: Retrospective review of 100 consecutive medical records of 13-18-year-old adolescents admitted to The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne (first 20 consecutive admissions in 2001 to each of five units - general medicine, adolescent medicine, specialty medicine, general surgery, and specialty surgery). Main outcome measures: Documentation of screening for biomedical (height, weight, pubertal staging, and hepatitis B vaccination) and psychosocial concerns (HEADSS framework categorised into four screening levels - none, incomplete, adequa..