[Adolescents in general medical practice--a management problem?]

Even though adolescents suffer from a variety of complains, they often do not consult a physician. After a high consultations rate during infancy and childhood, the rate dramatically decreases at the age of 10. During this period, it is typical that a decreasing number of consultations are influenced by parents while adolescents increasingly make their own decisions to consult a physician in case of illness. Also a change from pediatric care to other forms of primary care takes place in this age. It is argued that the decrease of consultation rates in adolescence is caused by difficulties in creating a confident social relationship between physicians and adolescents and by a lack of age-adequate medical services. Proposals for an improvement of adolescent health care are made at the end of the paper.