Background
: Adolescence is a translating period from childhood to adulthood, various medical problems occur with biologic, psychologic, social change because of sudden growth and development. But there is less concern about adolescence than other age groups. Therefore, we made a study to know the type of disease in adolescent patients.

Methods : 11,800 patient’s medical records were selected by the rank interval of 35,215 patients who visited Dong-A University Hospital for 1 year from January to December in 1991, and the complete medical record of 930 patients of age from 10 to 20 in law were selected and analyzed.

Results : The number of patient in each stage of adolescence is as follows : early stage 201(21.6%), middle stage 241(25.9%), late stage 488(52.5%). The number of male is 554(59.6%), and female is 376(40.4%). The ratio of male to female is 1.49:1. The number of patients by department are otolaryngology 138(14.8%), internal medicine 128(13.9%), ophthalmology 116(12.5%), orthopedic surgery 113(12.2%) and dermatology 92(9.9%) in order. The seasonal frequency is 280(30.1%) and 250(26.9%) in summer and winter, respectively. The ratio of OPD to ER patient in the route of visit is 3.89:1, the proportion of ER visit in trauma is 46.8% and the proportion of acute disease is 85.8%. in classified diseases by ICD-9, the number of patient each disease group are injury and poisoning 151(16.2%), nervous system & sensory organ disorder 128(13.8%), respiratory system disorder 127(13.7%) and skin disorder 91(9.8%) in order. Frequent diseases in individual system are follows ; Open wound, disorder of accommodation, chronic sinusitis, and infectious intestinal disease.

Conclusion : The types of disease in adolescence are determined by epidemiologic factors and factors related to use of medical service.