Assessing the impact of a web-based comprehensive somatic and mental health screening tool in pediatric primary care.

Objective: To evaluate how parents and physicians perceive the utility of a comprehensive, electronic previsit screener, and to assess its impact on the visit.

Methods: A mixed methods design was used. English-speaking parents were recruited from 3 primary care systems (urban MD and rural NY and VT) when they presented for a well-child visit with a child 4 to 10 years of age.

Use of inexpensive technology to enhance adolescent health screening and counseling.

Objectives: To describe the health issues reported using a personal digital assistant (PDA) to conduct screening at adolescent well visits, and to determine the effect of a PDA screening tool on the content and quality of the clinical interaction.

Design: The PDA screening tool was used to record adolescent health risk behaviors, and cross-sectional exit surveys were administered before and after PDA introduction.

Setting: Five primary care practices in New England.

Changing adolescent health behaviors: the healthy teens counseling approach.

Background: Brief motivational interventions that have been provided in addition to routine primary care have changed adolescent health behaviors. Whether health screening and motivational-interviewing-based counseling provided by clinicians during routine care can change behaviors is unknown.

Methods: Healthy Teens was a primary care, office-system intervention to support efficient, patient-centered counseling at well visits.

The impact of an appearance-based educational intervention on adolescent intention to use sunscreen.

During adolescence, there is a steady decline in the use of sun protection and increased use of indoor tanning lights. Previous health education efforts have changed knowledge but not these behaviors. Middle school students (n=113) received a single educational class that included personal viewing of skin changes visible under ultraviolet (UV) filtered light.

Longitudinal retention of families in the assessment of a prevention program targeting adolescent alcohol and tobacco use: the utility of an ecological systems framework.

This study examined the association between ecological context (extrafamilial, familial, child factors) at baseline and longitudinal retention of families in the 36-month assessment of an adolescent alcohol and tobacco use prevention program that was conducted within a pediatric primary care setting. A total of 1,780 families were enrolled at baseline when the youth were in the fifth and sixth grades, and 1,220 of these families participated in the 36-month assessment. Findings indicated that familial and child, but not extrafamilial, factors were associated with the participation of families in the 36-month assessment.

Family socialization of adolescent's self-reported cigarette use: the role of parents' history of regular smoking and parenting style.

Objective: To examine the main and interactive effects of parental history of regular cigarette smoking and parenting style on adolescent self-reported cigarette use.

Methods: Predictors of adolescent self-reported cigarette use, including parents' history of regular cigarette smoking and two dimensions of parenting behavior, were analyzed in a sample of 934 predominately Caucasian (96.3%) parent-adolescent dyads.

Costs of a smoking cessation counseling intervention for pregnant women: comparison of three settings.

Objective: Although the rate of smoking among women giving birth in the United States has declined steadily from 19.5% in 1989 to 11.4% in 2002, it still far exceeds the Healthy People 2010 goal of 1%.

A longitudinal examination of the link between parent alcohol problems and youth drinking: the moderating roles of parent and child gender.

The unique and interactive effects of paternal and maternal alcohol problems on the drinking behavior of adolescent girls and boys were investigated. A prospective design was employed to examine changes in youth drinking behavior over a 3-year period in a community-based sample of 695 families. Results revealed that, as maternal alcohol problems increased, the likelihood of adolescent alcohol use increased.

A pediatric, practice-based, randomized trial of drinking and smoking prevention and bicycle helmet, gun, and seatbelt safety promotion.

Objective: To prevent early adolescent health risk behaviors and to maintain or improve safety behaviors, we compared the effects of 2 interventions, delivered through pediatric primary care practices. The interventions, based on an office systems' approach, sought to prevent early drinking and smoking or to influence bicycle helmet use, gun storage, and seatbelt safety for children who were followed from fifth/sixth grades through eighth/ninth grades.

Design: Settings and Participants.