Teenagers can be helped to behave responsibly

BMJ 1996;312:1420 (1 June)

Letters

Teenagers can be helped to behave responsibly

EDITOR,--Sue Stuart-Smith's editorial on teenage sex containsseveral confusing statements.¹ Most of the editorial deals withunderage sex, but conclusions are generalised to all teenagers.A prepubescent 13 year old is not the same as a physically mature19 year old, yet they are both teenagers.

To explain the fact that young people fail to take preventivemeasures when they have intercourse Stuart-Smith suggests thatthey are cognitively immature, lacking in the capacity to reasonabstractly or predict future consequences, and see things froma different perspective. While this may be the case for someyounger adolescents, it has been shown that there is littleor no difference in these respects between young people in midand late adolescence and adults: for example, they reason equallywell when it comes to making informed medical decisions.² Inone study of perceived consequences of risky behaviour, whichcompared 12-18 year old adolescents . . . [Full text of this article]