Adult Care Transition

Transitioning from the paediatric to adult care involves a holistic multifaceted, active process that encompasses the health requirements of the young person and transcends beyond specific health condition needs to include the broader context of family, relationships, education, work and social care.1 It is defined as a purposeful, planned process that addresses the medical, psychosocial and educational/vocational needs of adolescents and young people with chronic physical and medical conditions as they move from child-centered to adult oriented health care systems.2 The chronicity of the medical conditions implies that the disease conditions occur more or less throughout life. The children would most likely have then developed a psycho-social

On the other hand those with strong paediatric staff rapport, a sense of loss in these relationships was expressed by the

Javalkara et al4 in USA additionally noted age, gender, and higher median income of caregivers as significant predictors of transition readiness. In developed countries with working health insurance scheme, transition may be less traumatic when financial aspects are concerned unlike in other climes like Africa, where health care is paid most times out-of-pocket. Furthermore, the unique traditional settings may affect the transition process in a different way than it does in other parts of the world. This is especially with regards to best age of disclosure of some chronic illnesses and consequently the best age of transition to the adult care, alongside other factors that best helps to make the decision if the child is ready or not to transit to adult care clinic. Equally pertinent to the transition process is the fact that adolescents with chronic disease must be seen to have developed independent disease self-management and have learnt to communicate effectively with their health care team to before being transferred to adult-oriented health care systems so as to sustain the gains of having managed that ill health for so long by the