ABSTRACT
The variety of explanatory variables that determine adolescents' access to health care is a further area of future research. The majority of existing studies addressing barriers to adolescent health care focused on race and gender. In particular, measures of health-related behavior, such as utilization of physicians' or psychosocial services, appointment-keeping, or hospital discharge rates, are of marginal value. Although there is a possible danger that females are oversensitive to physical ailments and stressors, health experts must acknowledge that males tend to underreport physical and psychological symptoms. Male adolescents are also less informed and less concerned about the implications of certain behaviors that are associated with increased risks to health. Adolescents with co-occurring diseases are perceived as being significantly more impaired than peers with a single diagnosis and are offered help more frequently. The descriptive analysis of adolescents' life circumstances and stressors and the assessment of adolescent psychopathology must be more culturally sensitive.
