Severity, affect, family and environment (safe) approach to evaluate chronic pelvic pain in adolescent girls

BACKGROUND: Pelvic pain is common in adolescent girls in day-to-day practice. Severity, Affect, Family and Environment (SAFE) is a recent interview strategy to approach these patients and their families..
AIM: 1. To find the prevalence of pelvic pain in adolescent girls. 2. To find out the feasibility and acceptability of 'SAFE' approach in evaluating chronic pelvic pain in adolescent girls.
SETTINGS & DESIGN: 200 adolescent girls aged 13-23 years were selected at random from school and colleges nearby hospital campus.
METHOD: A questionnaire method was adopted. Adolescent girls selected were divided into two groups, group I (with pain) and group II (without pain).
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: It was performed using chi-square and Fischer tests with significance of p value being taken at 0.05.
RESULTS: Out of 200 adolescent girls selected for interview, prevalence of pelvic pain was found to be 37.0%. Dysmenorrhoea was also found to have significant relationship with pelvic pain. Depression and anxiety, school absences and loss of weight were found to have significant association with pain. Pelvic pain was found to be more in adolescent girls with large family size (> 4 members), single parent, both parents working, ongoing marital problems at home and was less reported when there was good parent - child communication about sex and when the teenager was well prepared for menarche by the parents and the association with the above mentioned factors was found to be significant.
CONCLUSION: 'SAFE' approach contributes in identifying health problems in adolescent girls with chronic pelvic pain.