[A non invasive method for assessing sexual development at adolescence].

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Medicine
• Pediatric Endocrinology
• Public Health Research

Background:

• Traditional observational assessments of puberty can compromise adolescent privacy and are unsuitable for population research.
• Self-assessment of pubertal stages has yielded inconsistent and often unreliable results in previous studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the accuracy of a novel questionnaire designed to assess broad periods of puberty (early, intermediate, advanced) rather than precise Tanner stages.
• To provide a privacy-preserving and reliable method for pubertal assessment in research settings.

Main Methods:

• A questionnaire assessing pubertal development was administered to 188 girls and 142 boys (aged 8-18) and 36 younger children (aged 8-9) in a hospital outpatient setting.
• Participants' self-reported data were compared against clinical assessments of pubertal development (Tanner stages) conducted by trained professionals.
• The questionnaire underwent an initial pilot test on 30 adolescents prior to the main study.

Main Results:

• High concordance was observed between specific questionnaire items and advanced pubertal stages (Tanner stages III-V).
• Key questions like "Have you started puberty?" (Kappa=0.60), "Have you had your first menstrual period?" (Kappa=0.69), and "Do you shave?" (Kappa=0.66) demonstrated strong agreement.
• These questions exhibited high sensitivity and specificity (>=0.80) for identifying different pubertal periods.

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire is a reliable tool for assessing pubertal development.
• Further validation in non-clinical settings such as schools and homes is recommended to broaden its applicability.