RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this survey was to investigate adolescents' health through their utilization of a pediatric emergency unit. METHODS: Prospective survey performed one week of each month in 1999 concerning the adolescents' (12 to 18 years) visits to the Lenval's children emergency care unit in Nice. RESULTS: During the study period, 1,096 adolescents were examinated and accounting for 18.6% of the children admitted in the year. The main reasons for visits were injury-related visits (55.5%), non-accidental somatic complaints (38.7%), psychiatric disorders (5.5%), and psychosocial problems (0.4%). Most adolescent visits (68.6%) were not severe emergencies requiring hospital technical equipment support; about one-third of the visits (28.6%) were non urgent consultations; severe emergencies were fewer than 1%; there was no death. Compared with the other pediatrics age groups, adolescents more often used the hospital technical equipment (65.1% vs 45.4%), required a longer visit (62 +/- 33 vs 57 +/- 37 min), and had a higher hospitalization rate (13.4% vs 10.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescent emergency care requires multidisciplinary skills, such as traumatologic, gynecologic, psychiatric, and psychosocial compentence. Two units, absent at Lenval at the time of this survey, seem to be important for good care: space for very short hospitalization in the emergency unit and an adolescent-specific unit in the pediatric ward.