Adolescent Health Risk Screening in Primary Care

Adolescence represents a formative period during which risk behaviours—such as substance use, unprotected sexual activity, self-harm and emerging mental health disorders—can become entrenched and contribute to long-term morbidity. Primary care providers occupy a pivotal position to identify these concerns through opportunistic or systematic screening during routine consultations. Traditional clinician-led interviews may be constrained by time pressures and variable comfort with sensitive topics, leading to under-detection of psychosocial issues. In response, self-report electronic and digital screening tools have been developed to capture multidomain risk profiles prior to face-to-face assessment, enhancing patient disclosure and informing targeted interventions. Integrating clinical decision support and stepped-care algorithms into electronic platforms enables practitioners to tailor follow-up intensity according to individual need. Co-design and participatory methodologies ensure that screening instruments are acceptable to young people and feasible in diverse primary care settings. Globally, the adoption of such approaches has the potential to normalise conversations about mental health and risk behaviours, facilitate early intervention and reduce the burden of preventable health outcomes in adolescent populations.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Adolescent Health Risk Screening in Primary Care publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in adolescent health risk screening in primary care across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Electronic Health Report Form (eHRF): A digital questionnaire completed by patients to capture multidomain health behaviours and psychosocial concerns before consultation.

Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes (ePROs): Structured self-assessments of symptoms, behaviours or well-being submitted by patients via digital platforms.

Clinical Decision Support (CDS): Software-enabled prompts and guidance integrated into electronic systems to assist clinicians in screening and intervention decisions.

Stepped-care Intervention: A tiered treatment model offering progressive levels of intervention intensity based on the severity of identified risks.

References

1. Development and usability evaluation of an electronic health report form to assess health in young people: a mixed-methods approach. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (2023).
2. Developing a prototype digital risk mitigation pathway for children and young people admitted to acute paediatric NHS care in mental health crisis: Protocol of the Safety Assessment in Paediatric healthcare Environments (SAPhE) pathway study. Digital Health (2023).
3. Implementing the Routine Use of Electronic Mental Health Screening for Youth in Primary Care: Systematic Review. JMIR Mental Health (2021).