Transition readiness is the set of knowledge and skills that young people need in order to manage their health as adults. The Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (also called the TRAQ) is one measure of transition readiness.

We knew that transition readiness goes up as people get older, but we did not have a clear sense of the average transition readiness scores for people of different ages. This made it hard to tell what score we should expect for a particular person at a particular age.

To address this, we used data from IBD Partners. Participants in both IBD Partners and IBD Partners Kids & Teens between the ages of 12 and 21 chose to complete the TRAQ when they did surveys for IBD Partners. We took the results for anyone who had completed the TRAQ and looked at how the scores changed over time.

To read more click here.

Our objective was to describe the transition readiness (transitioning from child- to adult-centered healthcare) of children and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and study its relationships with age, sex, IBD activity, and measures of physical, psychological, and social health.

Participants in IBD Partners and IBD Partners Kids & Teens answered questions about demographics, IBD activity, transition readiness, health-related quality of life, and more.

In children and young adults with IBD, transition readiness was related to older age and female sex, but not IBD activity and other measures of physical, psychological, and social health.

Children and teenagers with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) are at increased risk of being unhappy with their body image. This study aimed to learn more about how common body image dissatisfaction (or "BID") is among these children and teenagers and to see if we could point to any risk factors for having BID. A total of 664 participants in the IBD Partners Kids & Teens study, ages 9-18, completed an online survey about anxiety, depression, disease activity, and quality of life. We found that about 3% of participants met the criteria for having BID by selecting the answer choices "I look awful" or "I look bad" when asked about their appearance. Young patients with BID tended to have worse disease, to be taking steroids, to be female, and to be diagnosed at an older age. These participants were also much more anxious and depressed than those who were satisfied with their appearance. Pediatric patients with BID should discuss these concerns with their physicians and healthcare teams.