Living in a Red State: The politics of parental consent forms in School Based Clinics limits access to services

Adolescents seek healthcare less frequently than any other age group and are at risk for forgone health care. School based health clinics were designed to increase access to care. It is important to understand what issues may impede access even in this setting. This is of particular importance in mental and reproductive health, where adolescents are at particular risk for not seeking needed services.

Louisiana’s school health centers provide both mental and physical health care services, including limited reproductive health services. The state requires active parental/guardian consent for all services provided for students under the age of 18. To better understand issues of parent/guardian consent, we took advantage of a natural experiment and performed a retrospective analysis of consent rates during a period during which three different consent forms were used.

This poster analyzes the effect on services consented for in one SBHC organization.

Methods:

Design: The study design was a time series retrospective review of three consent forms.

Results:

A total 696 consents were reviewed for the following: age, sex, and services consented for. There were 393 girls and 303 boys. The age range was from 12 to 20 with a mean of 14.4, a median of 15. 86.8% were 16 and under at the time the consent was given.

Conclusions:

This study supports the assumption that the requirement of active consent for each detailed service decreases the services consented for. The effect is greatest for reproductive health services, followed by mental health services.