Intervention resources
EAACI webinar series
-
Module 1: The challenges and how we can work with adolescents and young adults
-
Module 2: Practical organisation of transition and developing the key skills
Children and young people asthma training for tier 3 providers
This session will allow you to develop an in-depth understanding of all aspects of asthma care for children and young people and meet all the learning outcomes from tier 3 of the National CYP Asthma Capability Framework.
Shared decision making
Try a shared decision-making approach to tailor the management plan to your patient.
Publications underpinning the IMPAQT trial
Holley S, Walker D, Knibb R, et al. Barriers and facilitators to self-management of asthma in adolescents: An interview study to inform development of a novel intervention. Clin Exp Allergy 2018;48(8):944-56. 10.1111/cea.13141
Holley S et al. Development and validation of the Adolescent Asthma Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (AASEQ). Eur Respir J 2019;54
The transition from a child to a young adult with asthma
Adolescence is a dynamic period of life when patients move from being children under the supervision of their parents to independent, autonomous adults responsible for their own health. Different patients will start to make this transition at different ages and at different speeds. Healthcare professionals need to consider where any particular patient is on this journey when considering how to approach each patient. Do they need a more paediatric or a more adult approach? This should be seen as a transition that occurs over a number of years slowly bring the adolescent to the foreground of the consultation while slowly moving parents to the middle ground initially and later the background. This can be a challenging process for the patients, parents and healthcare professional.
The challenges of adolescent asthma
Poorly controlled asthma is common in adolescence and often more sub optimally controlled than in younger children. Possible explanations include:
- conflict between typical adolescent behaviour and good self-management behaviour
- sometimes limited and difficult communication between healthcare professionals and patients
Research indicates that the self-management behaviours initiated in adolescence persist into adulthood
Why adolescence is a difficult time for self-managing asthma
Adolescence is a time of major change in terms of physical features, personal relationships and cognition. These changes coincide with puberty and massive changes in the adolescent brain. These impact on how adolescents’ function on an everyday basis.
There is a surge of brain development occurs during early adolescence with development continuing into the early 20’s. Particular areas that rapidly develop include those responsible for:
- social relationships
- risk-taking
- controlling feelings and emotions
Neuroscience research is beginning to further our understanding of:
- why teenagers are vulnerable to peer influences, and
- why there is a window of vulnerability to risky behaviours between 14 and 17 years, particularly in the presence of peers.
Research indicates that emotional and social factors are likely to have a greater impact on decision-making in adolescence due to differences in development of different brain areas.
The dynamic interaction between changes in body, identity, and social groups, along with rapid brain development, and the acquisition of new cognitive abilities, is difficult for any adolescent, but perhaps even more so for those with chronic long-term health conditions. Perhaps we should be surprised that adolescents function as well as they do!