The relationship between the use of health clinics in rural Mississippi schools and the CHIP-AE adolescent health profile.

School health clinics are one way to meet the objectives in Healthy People 2010 for adolescent health. To determine the relationship between adolescent health status and use of the school health clinics in four Mississippi high schools, the Child Health and Illness Profile-Adolescent Edition (CHIP-AE) was used. The CHIP-AE identifies health status, giving scores on resilience, comfort, risks, and satisfaction, resulting in health profiles. One hundred seventy-one 9th-graders participated in this descriptive study. Students with the highest discomfort and risk scores had no use of the school health clinic. Students with fair health profiles were the highest users of the school health clinic when compared to all other profiles. Of those students with very poor health status, 60% reported the school health clinic was their only source of health care. In this study, the term school health clinic refers to the health office staffed by a nurse without an advanced degree.

Use of health services by ninth grade adolescents in rural Mississippi.

Rural Mississippi adolescents have not been surveyed regarding their use of health services. Prior to Hurricane Katrina we found that at least 43% of ninth grade students in Hancock County received healthcare in the previous three months, but a third had no regular place of care. Students (37%) did not seek health care that they needed with two-thirds of them feeling that the problem would go away. They minimally used the school clinics that varied considerably in availability. Strikingly, at that time, over 20% reported serious emotional/mental health problems for which they did not seek care and nearly 15% had problems for which they had sought professional help. This information highlights the need to encourage students to seek and have access to services.