Understanding and exploring adolescent health presentations in the Victorian primary care setting
Project Details
This project will be carried out by two fourth year medical students using Patron data to describe adolescent and young people's 2019 presentations to general practice in Victoria Australia.
It is over a decade since the reasons for adolescents and young peoples' (aged 10-25 years) presentations to Australian general practice have been examined; and there have been no attempts to examine reasons for their presentations using electronic medical record (EMR) data. In order to address quality care indicators for adolescents and young people in general practice we need to better understand how data in EMRs are recorded and to establish coding frameworks for you people's presentations and care that can be used nationally.
This study will enable us to begin to understand the EMR data as it relates to adolescent and young adult presentations to primary care, and it will give a preliminary understanding of the epidemiology of presentations and the limitations in the data that need to be improved to advance the utility of this data for capturing adolescent primary care consultations and quality indicators in the future.
Patron ID: PAT011
Project Lead
Part A: Describing adolescent health presentations during the 2019 calendar year.
Specific Objectives and Questions:
1. What are the demographic characteristics of young people presenting to general practice in Victoria (age, gender, other non-identifying fields if available such as rural/urban, occupation, smoking status, alcohol use, parity, health care card/private insurance)
2. What are the recorded reasons young people consult general practice in Victoria?
3. How frequently are investigations ordered and which are the most common?
4. How frequently are medications prescribed and which are the most common?
5. What Medicare item numbers are billed and what is the frequency of each (e.g., standard consult, mental health plan, etc.)?
6. What proportion of all patient consultations in 2019 are within the age group 10-25 vs other age groups?
7. How well do existing systems for disease classification fit the patterns and nature of health concerns among the adolescent population in Victoria?
8. How have the recorded reasons for presentation to general practice changed since the last published Australian report in 2015/17?
9. What is the quality of data entered in the fields examined?
Part B: Describing adolescent mental health presentations.
Specific Objectives and Questions:
1. What are the demographic characteristics of young people presenting to general practice with mental health issues by age group, by gender and by rural vs urban setting?
2. What proportion of reasons for encounter amongst young people is due to mental health issues?
3. How are common adolescent mental health concerns typically managed?
4. What are the differences in the prevalence and management of adolescent mental health problems between urban vs. rural settings in Victoria?
5. How have the rates of adolescent mental health presentations in primary care changed since the last published Australian report in 2015/17?
6. What is the quality of data entered in the fields examined?
Research Outcomes
As of 24/4/2023
- Student conference abstract
- Student manuscript
- Publication in a medical journal is in planning stages
Research Publications
Leizerovitz R, Williams I, Laughlin A, Sanci L. (2025) Adolescent health presentations to Victorian general practice: a descriptive study using electronic medical records. Australian Journal of Primary Health 31 (2025) PY25034. https://doi.org/10.1071/PY25034