Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0029713 (immaturity)
 4,335 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Although oral contraception is the fertility control method most frequently selected by US adolescents, factors such as inconsistent usage, payment inability, and cognitive-emotional immaturity lead half of these young women to discontinue pill use in the first year. Norplant and Depo-Provera--long-acting hormonal methods that do not require daily compliance--offer the potential to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies among adolescents; however, no data exist on the use of either method in this population. Before Norplant and Depo-Provera can be unconditionally recommended for use by adolescents, numerous research questions must be addressed. For example, it must be determined whether the pregnancy rates and side effects (especially on bone deposition) are the same in adolescents as in adult women. The possibility that adolescents who use long-acting contraception will abandon condom use due to the low risk of pregnancy--and thus place themselves at increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases--must be assessed. For Norplant, the medical-legal issues and responsibilities regarding insertion and removal must be clarified. More research is needed on the impact of partner perceptions on method continuation. It must be determined whether the role of health care providers in ongoing reproductive health promotion will be diminished by the need for fewer clinic visits. Also in need of attention are the demographic factors associated with use of these methods and the impact of their initial high expense on accessibility. If the continuation rates among adolescents of Norplant and Depo-Provera do not exceed that for the pill, the invasiveness and high cost of these methods may outweigh their benefits.
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PMID:The use of Norplant and Depo Provera in adolescents. 766 81