Polish adolescents’ right to confidential primary health care is not respected despite high public acceptance

Abstract

Adolescent access to confidential health care is considered a right of young people in many countries. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), for adolescents, it is one of the basic conditions for friendliness and accessibility of health care in general. 1 This confidentiality is understood in many different ways. For example, in some countries, a teenager has the right, to have an abortion without the knowledge of their parents (e.g., France, Luxembourg, Slovenia). 2 Confidentiality from another perspective is a practice allowing every adolescents, who come with a parent for a preventive visit, to have a few minutes of the so-called private time with the doctor (conversation without the parent being present in the office). 3 An important element of confidentiality is also the so-called conditional confidentiality-the rule that all information given to the doctor is covered by secrecy (from parents), excluding such information that concealment would pose a high risk for the health and /or the life of the teenager (e.g., suicidal ideation). 4 Private time and conditional confidentiality are necessary, for example, to conduct a reliable examination according to the HEADSS method (Home, Education, Activities, Drugs, Suicidality, Sex). Parental presence has shown to reduce not only the honesty of adolescents, but also the number of topics addressed during the visit, particularly those related to sexuality, substance use and mental health. 5 Adolescents' right to confidential health care demonstrates respect for human rights, including the right to be heard, 6 the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health 7 and the right to a private life, which, as Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states, should not be unreasonably

The future of well-care for adolescents in Poland. More questions than answers

“…A reform of preventive care should lead to a system which will meet the criteria of 'adolescent friendly medicine' with the respect for the right to doctor-patient confidentiality and a young patient's autonomy. Work on new standards must not exclude the voice of those directly involved [22]. source of funding: this work was funded from the authors' own resources.…”