Adolescent counseling

Abstract

Adolescent Counseling (AC) is a psychosocial activity to promote health and achieve voluntary behavior change, with a positive impact on people’s health. This article addresses the issue through a constructivist and person-centered approach. Based on a conceptual framework, we begin by describing and analyzing considerations for its implementation, assessing its foundations, identifying its phases, and inviting pediatricians and other health professionals, who care for adolescents in their clinical practice, to incorporate this health-promoting strategy. It includes a review of national and international scientific publications of experiences in AC, accounting for their progress and future projections. We concluded that reported research on the progress of AC is not enough, even though the evidence shows that it is a proven efficient strategy to achieve behavioral change in people. We proposed to conduct more studies (mixed and qualitative), which investigate the methodology used in AC and its positive achievements in the health of adolescents.