Adolescents' and Young Adults' Routine Care Use: The Role of Their Mothers' Care Use Behaviors

Purpose: Little is known whether mothers' own care use is differentially associated with their adolescents' routine care use by gender. The main purpose of this study is to examine whether mothers' healthcare use prospectively predicts their adolescents' routine care use stratified by gender, after controlling for predisposing (child's age, race/ethnicity, region of residence, urbanicity, and mother's age at child's birth), enabling (mother's education, adolescent and mother health insurance), and need (child health status) factors. Methods: In 2018, a prospective analysis was conducted using data from 5,040 adolescents aged 9-24 and their mothers who completed the two-generation National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 2006 (first interview) and 2008 (second interview). Findings include percentages and adjusted odds ratios of the factors that predict adolescents' self-report of routine care use in the past year measured at the second interview. Results: In 2008, over half of participants reported a routine doctor visit during the prior 12 months and this varied by gender; more females (68.7%) had a visit than males (53.5%). Factors that independently predicted a greater odds of adolescents' routine doctor visits included mothers with routine doctor visits at both interviews or the second interview only, and adolescents' health insurance and past routine visit, regardless of gender. Males aged 18-20 and 21-24 years had lower odds of having a routine doctor visit than males aged 9-11 years. Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the potential role that mothers' care use can play in their adolescents' routine care use, especially for their sons, independent of insurance status. 2018 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. All rights reserved.