Use of an Electronic Pre-visit Questionnaire and Effect on Patient-provider Discussions of Youth Violence in Primary Care

Pediatricians are supposed to talk about youth violence at all heath supervision visits, however these types of conversations rarely occur. There have been no studies assessing tools to prompt these discussions. The goal of this study is to see if electronic pre-visit questionnaires (PVQs) prompt patient-provider discussion of youth violence (YV) in the primary care setting. Additionally, patient-provider characteristics are explored as mediators to youth violence discussions, as well as feasibility and acceptability of the PVQ by patients and providers.

Adolescents ages 13 to 21 who come to the Hasbro Primary Care Clinics for annual physicals will be recruited. A baseline phase was conducted to look at how often providers ask about health-related teen behaviors, assessed by exit survey. The experimental period will involve adolescents completing health-related behavior PVQ, given to their doctor prior to the visit. Exit survey will assess topics discussed. Experimental group will differ from control group based on PVQ containing extra questions about youth violence.