Adolescents calling a peer-listening phone service: variations in calls by gender, age, and season of the year.

Adolescents have specific concerns although these may not be readily apparent to health care providers. Described here are gender, age, and seasonal variations of concerns of adolescents calling a peer-listening phone service which has been in operation in Northwest Ohio since May 1987. The data reported are from calls received between May 1, 1987 and December 31, 1992. Demographic data as well as issues discussed are recorded for each call. There were significant gender (p < or = .001), age (p < or = .01), and seasonal (p < or = .05) variations when compared to the calls in total. Knowing which issues are important for adolescents may help us better elicit problems and give anticipatory guidance when seeing adolescents. Further studies will need to be done in order to determine how needs related to these issues can be best addressed.