Adolescent Health Flashcards
Why is the adolescent age group focused on?
They have particular risk factors
What is an adolescent?
Ages 10-19 (WHO definition)
- Fastest pace of growth and change 2nd only to infancy
Epidemiology of adolescents?
- 1/6 people in the world (> ~1 billion)
- 24% of Malawi population
What are key developmental experiences in adolescents?
- Biological: Onset of puberty to adulthood
- Socioeconomic: Movement towards independence
- Psychological: Development of identity and complex reasoning
Note: May vary across time, culture, and socioeconomic situation
Brain development in childhood?
- Concrete here and now thinking
- Things are right or wrong.
Brain development in adults?
Complex reasoning, abstract thinking, accept ambiguity
Neurological changes in an adolescent?
- Increasing myelination means impulse messages move at higher speeds
- Incomplete inhibitory systems
- Increased sensitivity to rewards
- Trouble inhibiting emotional responses
- Prefrontal Cortex (decision making) fully developed in mid 20s ~ age 25
What is driving risk taking behavior?
- Social affiliations outside family become more important – susceptible to peer pressure.
- Exploring boundaries, independence
- Looking for social acceptance and have increased sensitivity to rewards
- Prefrontal Cortex reconciles internal emotional states with external reality demands
Barriers to care in adolescent health?
- Thought of as healthy
- Poor health facility attendance
- Restrictive laws or policies
- Feeling invincible
High risk behavior initiated by adolescents?
- sex
- drugs
- experimentation
- peer pressure
What results in poor outcomes in adolescents?
- Choices set the stage for health later in life
- Especially vulnerable:
- Unhoused
- Trafficked
- Immigrants
- Refugees
Leading causes of morbidity/mortality in adolescents?
- Leading cause of death = Road traffic Injuries
- HIV
- suicide
- depression
- violence
Mental health in adolescents?
½ of all mental health disorders start by age 14, most remain undetected and untreated
Describe pregnancy in adolescence?
- Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the 2nd cause of death for adolescent girls globally
- Babies born to adolescents have higher mortality
- Every year, 3 millions girls globally undergo unsafe abortions
Why are adolescent pregnancies more dangerous?
- higher risk of pre-eclampsia
- preterm labor
- multiple gestations
- low birth weight
- STI
- post partum depression
Describe teenage pregnancy in Malawi?
- 29 out of 100 pregnancies are in ages 10 -19 in 2019
- 35 out of 100 in 2020 - Teenage fertility 31% in rural areas, 21% in urban areas
- 3x more likely in poorest households