Parents often OK with teens’ medical privacy

A majority of parents seem to accept that their teenagers have a right to medical privacy—and those who are resistant to the idea can often be persuaded to change their minds, a new study suggests.

Doctor-patient confidentiality is a standard of medical care, even when the patient is an underage adolescent. But some parents object to that idea, wanting to know about any health issues—such as smoking, drugs and sex—their children have.

The new study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, looked at parents’ opinions about teen medical privacy, and whether doctors and nurses could persuade resistant parents to accept the principle.

In their initial survey of 563 parents, researchers at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, found that about 65 percent believed there are “good reasons” for teenagers to have the right to medical privacy.

And while 35 percent of parents disagreed with that notion at first, only about 14 percent believed as much after receiving either written information on teen privacy or having a discussion with a doctor or nurse.

Similarly, before receiving any education on teen privacy, more than 30 percent of parents thought teenagers should not speak with doctors alone. That figure also dropped to about 14 percent after the education effort—which included giving parents national statistics on risky behaviors among U.S. high school students, as well as reasons for allowing teenagers to have a confidential relationship with their doctor.

“Educating parents can change their opinion about teen privacy,” Drs. Jeffrey W. Hutchinson and Elisabeth M. Stafford conclude in their report.

Knowing this, they write, should encourage doctors to offer teenage patients private discussions “proactively and consistently.”

One looming obstacle, the researchers note, is “giving a 14-year-old the courage to ask his or her parent to leave so that he or she can talk.” This is particularly true, they add, of teenagers who are victims of abuse—a situation that can make it impossible for them to have a private conversation with a doctor or nurse.

Still, this study suggests that many parents have open minds when it comes to teen medical privacy, according to the researchers.

Most apprehensive parents, they write, are only “expressing their fear of the unknown and their anxiety about the changes that come with adolescence.”

SOURCE: Pediatrics, October 2005.

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