Transitions in disease and healthcare are periods that can complicate someone’s life and require an adaptive approach. By making transitions between levels of care as smooth as possible, with integrated, multidisciplinary healthcare that is better suited to wishes and needs, accommodating people with chronic diseases and their loved ones is made easier and the quality of their life is improved.
AnneLoes van Staa heads the On Your Own Feet research programme , aimed towards young people with chronic conditions and their transition to adulthood and adult care. In addition to the development of new knowledge, much attention is being paid to the development of interventions that are useful in practice. In its follow-up Action Programme On Your Own Feet Ahead!, care providers from 30 different institutions collaborated to improve the provision of transitional care. In this program, organisational improvements in adolescent healthcare went side by side with the encouragement of self-management and social participation of adolescents.
Self-management is all about stimulating patient's own agency and independence, so that managing a medical condition can be optimally integrated into daily life. Van Staa's projects NURSE-CC and SPIL also have self-management as a central theme. NURSE-CC is oriented towards self-management support by nurses, and SPIL is an academic workshop that promotes and supports self-management of adolescents with chronic conditions.
"An overly protective approach does not benefit children with chronic conditions in the long run. That is why I strongly advocate self-management."
Applied research professor Transitions in Care
