[Description and evaluation of the counseling and consultation activities performed by public health nurses for apprentices and students in Vaud: the youth and health program].

Since 1983 apprentices and students 16-19 years of the Canton of Vaud (Switzerland) have been offered various activities in the frame of a school-based health promotion program called "Jeunesse et Santé" (screening, health education...). This paper focuses on the description and the evaluation of emergency care and counseling activities ran by nurses in each school. During one and a half year, 969 adolescents have presented themselves for medical reasons (40%), or for problems of psychosomatic (30%) or psycho-social (30%) nature. Most of the pupils have consulted either spontaneously (40%) or after a screening procedure (40%). 297 youngsters have been sent to another institution for further evaluation and treatment (personal physician, outpatient clinic, social services). Three months after the first consultation, the nurses have contacted both the adolescents an the institutions for an evaluation: A large part of the pupils is satisfied with the help they have received (greater than 90%). However the follow-up seems more difficult to organize and less effective for the adolescents that have presented themselves with psychosocial problems. The paper ends with the advantages and the limitations of ambulatory research performed in the frame of school health activities.