Adolescents with sickle cell disease who use problem-focused coping strategies and have increased social support have significantly higher levels of transition readiness from pediatric to adult healthcare.
Clinicians, healthcare teams and institutions have a “responsibility” to help patients develop these coping strategies so they can have better future outcomes, Apoorva S. Iyengar, MD, pediatric rheumatology fellow at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, told Healio.
“There are aspects of the transition process that we can support in our young adults,” she said.