Introduction: There is a major difference between children and adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in terms of the approach to investigation and treatment, service provision and ideology of care. A transition IBD clinic was established in our tertiary referral center in 2013. The aim of this study is to quantitatively describe the importance of an organized transition process in IBD.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of all patients` files visited the transitional clinic. A self-efficacy questionnaire (the “IBD-yourself”) was used to assess patients’ skills for self-management of chronic conditions, before and after joining our clinic.
Results: Twenty one patients visited the clinic. The vast majority (20/21) had Crohn`s disease. The average age was 19.4±2.1 (range 17-27) years, and average disease duration 4.9±3 (range 0.67-10) years. The transition process, completed by 15 (11 males), included an average of 3-4 meetings over an average of 7±4.1 months. Significantly higher self-efficacy score after completing the transition, compared to before starting it, was noticed in the following domains: knowledge of IBD (P=0.01), of diagnostic tests (P=0.0004), of medication use (P=0.003), self-management in an outpatient clinic (P=0.016), understanding the transition process (P=0.0001) and self-readiness for transition (P=0.013). We noticed a positive correlation between number of meeting and coping with IBD (r=0.56, p=0.029).
Conclusion: An organized adolescent–young adult IBD transition clinic significantly contributes to higher scores in self-management of IBD. The transition process is a major part of a successful transfer to the adult gastroenterologist and should be implemented in IBD Centers.
