Transition readiness measures for adolescents and young adults with chronic health conditions: a systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundTransition from pediatric to adult healthcare for adolescents with chronic health conditions has emerged as a critical period influencing health outcomes. Suitable transition readiness measures are necessary to facilitate effective planning. Currently, there is little consensus about well-validated transition readiness measures. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify best practices in transition readiness measurement for adolescents and young adults with chronic health conditions.Data sourcesAcademic databases searched included PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Google Scholar and Athabasca University Library’s Discover.Study selectionArticles were included that discussed the development and psychometric properties of transition readiness measures for adolescents and young adults (11–25 years) with chronic health conditions and/or that utilized a previously developed measure.Data extractionThe primary and secondary reviewers extracted data from the selected articles as per the data extraction tool developed for this review.ResultsForty-eight articles, representing 19 tools, were included in the review. Ten of the tools were disease-specific; nine were disease-neutral. According to the Cohen criteria, eight measures were “well-established assessments”. The Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire was deemed the best measure of transition readiness available. The literature search included only articles published in peer-reviewed journals; measures nearing completion or awaiting publication were not included. In addition, only English manuscripts were included, many from North America.ConclusionsDespite national practice guidelines and ongoing policy development, there is slow movement towards achieving a gold standard or best-practice measure of transition readiness.

Getting ready for transition to adult care: Tool validation and multi‐informant strategy using the Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire in pediatrics

“…To this end, a number of assessment instruments have been developed. According to a recent systematic review, the Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) was the best instrument to measure transition readiness to date (Parfeniuk et al, 2020). The TRAQ is a disease‐neutral, self‐administered questionnaire, and its final version consists of 20 items divided into five subscales (Wood et al, 2014).…”

Pre-Transition Consultations for Adolescents With Chronic Conditions in a General Pediatric Hospital: Lessons Learned

“…Indeed, most adolescents become truly independent years later and holistic life-skills are not associated with transition outcome [11]. This reinforces our choice of the Good2Go among others validated questionnaires [19,33].…”

“…Raising adolescents' awareness of their own situation, the Good2Go is now completed at the very end of the PTC to give a more accurate indication of what to work before transfer [2]. However, the failure of transfer for one adolescent reminds that the predictive value of transition readiness questionnaires remains unclear in terms of transition success [19,33]. Thus, we found no correlation between Good2Go scores and level of information regarding the transition or social context, which are nevertheless both key-points of transition success.…”

CHILD-BRIGHT READYorNot Brain-Based Disabilities Trial: protocol of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) investigating the effectiveness of a patient-facing e-health intervention designed to enhance healthcare transition readiness in youth

“…Each item is scored from 1 to 5, where 1=‘I do not need to do this’, 2=‘I do not know how but I want to learn’, 3=‘I am learning to do this’, 4=‘I have started doing this’ and 5=‘I always do this when I need to’. It is a validated, patient-centred questionnaire used in previous studies to measure transition readiness 17 and is designed to be self-administered at baseline and 6 months. Details about the TRAQ and other secondary outcome measures are provided in online supplemental file 2 ).…”