Abstract
Introduction. The general practitioner is the most frequently consulted physician by adolescents. Among young people, 87% reported being healthy. The general practitioner has an important role in the implementation of preventive actions among adolescents.Aims. To assess the proportion of consultations in general practice resulting in a preventive act among adolescents and young adults. To measure the part of each field or theme of prevention in these reventive acts.Methods. The ECOGEN study was a prospective, cross-sectional and multicentric French study conducted by the French National College of Teaching General Practitioners. Data were collected by general medical residents between December 2011 and April 2012 and encoded using the International Classification of Primary Care. An ancillary study, focused on 13-24 year olds, measured the proportion of each field of prevention mentioned during consultations.Results. Among the 20,613 consultations included in ECOGEN, 1,698 (8.2%) were among the target population. 29.6% of preventive messages were initiated by the physician without an initial patient request. Sexually transmitted infections (3 %), violence (0.5 %), sleep (1 %), mental health (5 %), nutrition (5 %), social relations (3 %) and addictions (5 %) were poorly covered.Conclusion. General practitioners are more involved in prevention than indicated by the consultation motives among 13-24 year olds. The prevention consultation with an adolescent can be long and must be reiterated. All preventive fields cannot be covered all in one go with the risk of losing tracking capability. A simple, evolving consultation tool would be useful to personalize the preventive tracking of adolescents.