Aging out of Pediatrics: Preparing Adolescents for Health Care Transition Using Illustration-based Anticipatory Guidance

Objective Health care transition (HCT) for adolescents without special health care needs in the primary care setting has received inadequate attention, as represented by national surveys, when compared to adolescents with special health care needs. Barriers to transition such as lack of knowledge and preparation have been known to hinder HCT despite the knowledge gap and weak evidence related to non-special needs adolescent transition. Application of anticipatory guidance education related to care transition may improve transition readiness scores of adolescents without special health care needs. Methods Utilizing Meleis’ transition theory with the Plan-Do-Study-Act framework, a quasi-experimental study was conducted comparing transition readiness scores between baseline and intervention groups of adolescents 14 years or older attending their well checks at a small pediatric primary care site. The intervention consisted of two videos developed from Got TransitionTM's (n.d.) Six Core Elements for specific adolescent age ranges. Results Statistical analysis reveals that the subgroup and overall transition readiness scores for both age groups, 14-15 and 16-18 years of age, when comparing the baseline groups to the intervention groups, have mixed significance (p = .419, p = .074, respectively). However, when asking the respondents about their understanding of the transition process and their role in that process, 75% and 62.5%, respectively, at minimum agreed the intervention was helpful. Conclusion The findings were mixed, indicating the educational videos did have a short-term impact on adolescent transition readiness scores for the 16-18 years old group only. Future focus on long-term follow up throughout the adolescent period may yield better data.