Transition from Pediatric to Adult Healthcare Services for Adolescents and Young Adults with Long-term Conditions

This book offers essential information on interventions and actions that enable and promote transition experiences for adolescents and young adults. It provides guidance on appropriate strategies that bring together these groups and caregivers in the context of transition preparation, and those which optimize adolescents’ and young adults’ ability to self-manage their healthcare.

The health care transition for adolescents and young adults has gained more attention given the improved survival rates, including for those with long-term conditions. It is now estimated that more than 90% of children diagnosed with a long-term condition will survive into adulthood.  The significant change in survival requires concomitant services to facilitate adolescents’ and young adults’ successful transition to adult health care, therefore providers need education, knowledge and skills to support healthcare transition services. A recent US national survey demonstrated only 10% of parents/caregivers reported that their children received transition preparation services. 

This book is targeted at nurses and pediatric and adult health care providers of different disciplines seeking guidance on which interventions are available, how they can be used, advantages and challenges, and how best to promote a seamless transition for all adolescents and young adults with long-term conditions. It provides several examples of transition programmes and initiatives worldwide. There is an increasing focus on how nurses can support transition but little guidance on what is effective and what has been tried. This book will fill a gap by addressing all of these issues outlined above and by providing worked examples from leading nurse researchers and academics worldwide.

Cecily L. Betz, PhD, RN, FAAN is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, USC Keck School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Betz is the Nursing Director and Research Director of the USC University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). Dr. Betz' area of specialization is health care transition (HCT) planning and she is a recognized national and international expert in the field. She has written numerous empirical, clinical, and conceptual articles on the topic. She serves on the Administrative Team of the International and Interdisciplinary Health Care Transition Research Consortium that fosters inter-professional collaboration and development of this emerging field of practice and research.  She is the Director, Movin’ On Up Health Care Transition Program, CHLA Spina Bifida Program She served as the Chair of the Society of Pediatric Nurses Task Force that formulated the 2017 SPN position statement entitled, Transition of Pediatric Patients into Adult Care.  She has coedited 13 books in pediatric nursing and topics pertaining to special health care needs and health care transition. She is the Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing: Nursing Care of Children and Families, the official journal of the Society of Pediatric Nurses and the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society.

Imelda T. Coyne, PhD, RN, FEANS, FTCD, is Professor of Children’s Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery and Co-Director, Trinity Research in Childhood Centre (TRiCC) Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. 

Dr Coyne is a children's nurse who cares passionately about children and youths’ participation rights and welfare. Her research focuses on children and youths participation in healthcare decision-making, triadic treatment decision-making; family-centred care; chronic illness management and transition from child to adult services. She has written over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals, co-authored four children’s nursing textbooks.She has presented widely (more than 200 papers) including many invited keynote presentations and delivered workshops internationally. Currently, she is Ambassador for the Children’s Participation Hub and member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the National Longitudinal Study of Children in Ireland, established by the Irish Government.  Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Task Force that formulated the 2018 National Transition Standards for the Transition of Adolescent to Adult Health Care.  Dr Coyne was a Guest Editor for the special issue “Health Care Transition for Adolescents and Emerging Adults with Special Health Care Needs and Disabilities” Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 2015. She is a board member and Fellow of the European Academy of Nursing Science (EANS) and member of three nursing editorial boards.