Abstract Body

Background and purpose:Healthy cognitive, physical, sexual and psychosocial development is essential for all adolescents to successfully enter adulthood. Effective primary health care services are required to protect adolescents from possible health problems, to reveal unfamiliar diseases, and to perform their treatment and follow-up. The aim of the study is to evaluate adolescents' utilization from primary health care services, nutritional behavior and to examine their relationship with each other.

Method:146 adolescents between the ages of 10-18 were included in this descriptive study. A questionnaire of 15 questions was applied to the participants about their eating habits, knowing the family physician and going to family medicine.

Results:The average age of the participants is 16.4±1.6 and 58.9% are girls. 85.6% of them went to the family doctor to be examined. Nutritional behavior score and going to the family doctor were higher in girls than boys (p<0.001). In obese and overweight patients, the rate of knowing who the family physician is, the score of going to family medicine and the nutritional behavior score were found to be lower than those of normal weight.

Conclusion:In our study, it was observed that adolescents who use primary health care more often had lower rates of obesity and overweight and a healthier diet. In order to get rid of obesity, which is an important public health problem of today, it is necessary to increase the rate of adolescents using primary health care services. Considering factors such as age and gender, healthy eating behaviors should be encouraged and adolescents should be informed more to use primary health care services.