Problems of adolescents sexuality

Recent discussions highlighted adolescents' sexual behaviour, but published studies concentrate on specific problems or subgroups of patients without addressing factors related to sexuality. To obtain a broad picture we studied two groups of adolescents attending genito-urinary medicine/sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics in contrasting areas of Britain, inner London and Swansea. These were evaluated for referral pattern, sexual partner, contraception, obstetric history, sexually transmitted disease, and cervical cytology findings. Over half the adolescents referred themselves but few doctors other than general practitioners referred patients. Sexual partners were regarded by males as casual but by females as regular. Only 66% (81) of females practised contraception. Adolescents had more STD's than the total clinic population except for genital herpes simplex infection, and a high prevalence of genital warts in females has important future implications. The main conclusions were that there is a need for sexually related education targetted at adolescents and their health care providers, especially doctors.