Counselling skills training for adolescent health: A WHO approach to meet a global need |
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Authors: | Herbert L. Friedman Dalva E. Hedlund |
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Affiliation: | (1) Adolescent Health Programme, World Health Organization, USA;(2) Department of Education, Cornell University, USA |
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Abstract: | In recent years as public health measures such as improved sanitation, water supply, and immunization have taken effect in developing as well as economically developed countries, there has been an increase in attention to health problems arising from voluntary behaviour such as sexual activity and substance abuse rather than simply from passively acquired infection. This is of special relevance to adolescents who have generally been given lower priority in health services because they are relatively disease-free yet whose patterns of behaviour have great significance for their present and future health. However establishing or changing health behaviour during the dynamic period of adolescence can be difficult especially when the environment is rapidly changing too. This is especially so in developing countries where the traditional directive approach to guidance may need to give way to a somewhat more non-directive style of counselling in order to accommodate greater adolescent autonomy, without loss of fundamental cultural values. Because few people in developing countries are experienced in such techniques WHO has developed a module for training counselling skills for adolescent sexual and reproductive health which preserves culture specificity in a non-directive approach and uses behavioural techniques to train communication microskills. |
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