1. Introduction
dolescence is an important and vital period in the human lifespan [1]. The adolescent girls’ health is affected by special cultural and social factors. Investing in their health requires careful planning and effective intervention [2]. For any planning, accurate knowledge of their needs is necessary [3]. In the International Conference on Population and Development, emphasis was placed on the difference between the needs of adults and adolescents [4]. Participating countries were asked to identify and address these needs [2]. Despite the differences inherent in adolescents, few studies have been conducted to assess their specific health needs [5].
The aim of this study was to assess the healthcare needs of adolescent girls in Iran. 
2. Materials and Methods
This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 850 female students who were studying in the first- and second-grade high schools in Rasht, Iran. Participants were selected based on a multistage cluster sampling method. Data were collected using a two-part questionnaire. The first part had 18 items surveying socio-demographic characteristics (age, grade, field of study, place of residence, ethnicity, number of family members, birth order, parents’ age/education/occupation, family income, living with/without parents). The second part was the Female Adolescents Health Needs Questionnaire (FAHNQ) developed by Shahhosseini et al. to assess the female adolescents’ expectations and perceptions of the healthcare needs. It has 65 items and five domains: physical (14 items); emotional (16 items); social (16 items); educational (14 items); and spiritual (5 items). Participants were asked to rate the healthcare needs based on the gap between their expectations and perceptions on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree) [23]. The scores were recorded in percentage. The face validity of this questionnaire was tested on 30 females, and has an acceptable content validity of 92%. Moreover, its reliability using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was reported 0.90. Statistical analysis was performed in SPSS V. 21 software using descriptive statistics (Mean, standard deviation, median, minimum, and maximum). 
3. Results 
The Mean±SD age of participants was 15.3±1.6 years, ranged from 12 to 18 years. The mean age of their fathers and mothers was 45.2±6.2 and 40.7±5.7 years, respectively (Table 1). 




Their Mean±SD score of healthcare needs were as follows: Physical need=15.12±10.34; emotional need=23.47±12.22; social need=21.02±11.68; educational need=18.63±16.01; spiritual need=13.86±11.99; and overall healthcare need=18.8±10.1. As can be seen, the highest score was related to the emotional health need (23.47%), and the lowest score was related to the spiritual health need (11.99%).
4. Conclusion 
The results of this study showed that the emotional health need was the critical need among adolescent girls; this results is consistent with Shahhosseini et al.'s study [23]. The highest gap between expectations and perceptions of the girls was related to “blamed and humiliated by the educational consultant” and “education along with assistance programs”. It is recommended that a special attention should be paid to the various healthcare needs of adolescent girls. Since the assessment in the present study was conducted using a valid and reliable tool and in accordance with Iranian culture, the results can help with planning based on the healthcare priorities of adolescent girls.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
Ethical considerations of the study were observed by obtaining the license of the Ethics Committee (No. IR.GUMS.REC.1397001) from Guilan University of Medical Sciences, receiving a letter of recommendation to present to educational centers, explaining the Objectives of the study to participants and obtaining their informed consent and confidentiality of information.

Funding
This article was extracted from the MSc. thesis of first author, Student Research Committee, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht.

Authors' contributions
Conceptualization, resources, supervision: Sepideh Panjalipour, Zahra Bostani Khalesi; Methodology: Sepideh Panjalipour, Zahra Bostani Khalesi, Ehsan Kazemnejad Leili; Investigation: Sedigheh Rezaei Chamani; Writing – review & editing: Zahra Bostani Khalesi, Ehsan Kazemnejad Leili; Funding acquisition: All author. 

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Vice Chancellor for Research, Shahid Beheshti University and Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery.


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