America's children in crisis: Adolescents' requests for support from a national telephone hotline

More than 63,000 adolescents, aged 10 to 19 years, called a national crisis hotline from September 1991 through June 1992. Nearly 73% of these ( N = 46,392) were coded as crisis calls. Developmental trends were identified for various aspects of support-seeking by examining differences in proportions of calls within defined categories across these years. Calls for support for issues related to relationships accounted for nearly half of all calls by these young people. Within the broad category of relationships, specific trends included decreasing numbers of calls about peer relations from age 13 through 19; decreasing calls about parent—child relations from 11 through 19; and increasing calls about marriage beginning at age 15. Calls with concerns about sexuality increased steadily to a peak at age 16, and calls with concerns about addictions increased steadily from age 13. Sex differences were found for length of calls at each age and for the various categories of support-seeking.