The aim of the study is to verify the health-illness profile of adolescent users of a Basic Health Unit in the city of São Paulo (SP - Brazil). Empirical data were gathered through the retrospective analysis of individual reports, during the time in which a specific program for adolescents was developed, January 1988 to December 1991. The identified profile leads to a reflection concerning adolescents' life conditions and the correlated health-illness process expressions, enabling the conclusion that the biological paradigm must be surpassed so that other dimensions of the adolescents' existence that interfere in their health-illness process can be expressed
adolescents; health-illness profile; nursing care