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Introduction: Patient education is recommended to improve the transition from paediatric to adult care for young people with chronic conditions. But a consensus has not been reached regarding a particular model. This study aimed to understand how to prepare for the implementation of a Developmentally Appropriate Patient Education during Transition (DAPET), which would revolve around the young person's psychosocial development. Method: Three focus groups were organised with healthcare providers and two focus groups took place with the parents of young people with chronic conditions. We used activity theory to explore practices and to identify obstacles to the implementation of DAPET, as well as to recognise which resources might be available to implement DAPET. Results: Healthcare providers agreed on the need to engage in an educational approach centred on the psychosocial development of young people during transition. However, study findings highlight the following obstacles to doing so: a lack of competencies in adolescent and young adult medicine and a lack of available resources to meet these goals. Furthermore, parents wanted to redefine their role in the transition process and to allow their children to develop self-management skills. Conclusion: Healthcare providers and parents considered the implementation of DAPET to be acceptable and even advisable. However, the programme's feasibility was questioned due to perceived shortfalls in the hospital system as it currently stands and the ways in which an educational approach would be applied. An environment that facilitates healthcare providers' educational initiatives and encourages the participation of parents is required.

Background Patients are using online health forums (OHFs) to exchange about their health, diseases and treatments. Some OHFs are independent, not submitted to health care providers' control nor to social desirability. This must probably influence the very nature of patient's learning. Objectives: This research aims to bring some answers to the following questions: What are the characteristics of independent OHFs? What are OHF internaut patients' profile? How do they use OHFs? Are there any characteristics that might help to understand their use of OHFs? Methods: A literature review has been undertaken querying 10 databases. The review was completed with an analysis of the "grey literature". Eleven keywords were used singly or in combination. The article selection was conducted by two independent researchers. Results: 23 documents were selected and analysed. Five OHF definitions, three user's classifications and four OHF uses were identified and analysed. Discussion: The review allowed us to 1) formulate a definition of a chronic health conditions oriented OHF, 2) describe its characteristics, 3) suggest a users' classification and, 4) describe the four OHF uses. Conclusions: Independent OHF is a virtual and free space beyond institutional control. It may be considered as a learning and educational media, formal and informal, and spontaneous. The understanding of the knowledge acquisition processes and strategies among OHF users is necessary in order to use this web tool as patient education strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To give a comprehensive overview of the factors that influence the transition from pediatric services to adult care, and to conceptualize a relevant education program.Method: An evaluation grid was used to analyze the literature and classify factors depending on whether they were related to the patients, to the health care organization, to health care personnel, to the interaction between medical staff and patient, or to the illness and its treatment.Results: We based our analysis on a selection of 20 publications. The following factors were identified and classified in an integrative framework: self-management skills, trust in adult care, the feeling of self-efficacy, social support, the patient's gender and social position, the trust between child carers and adult carers, interdisciplinary cooperation, and the medical staff's consideration of the patient's projects.Conclusions and Practice Implications: The current analysis makes it possible to formulate educational aims and to design a way of integrating them to a transition plan. However, the collected studies mainly focus on knowledge of the illness, on treatment, and on the health care system. Psychosocial dimensions at play at the time of the transition - such as identity development - are not sufficiently explored in the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchanges between diabetic patients on discussion fora permit to study their understanding of their disorder, their behavior and needs when facing health problems. When analyzing these exchanges and behavior, it is necessary to collect information on user profile. We present an approach combining lexicon and super-vised classifiers for the identification of age and gender of contributors, their disorders and relation between contributor and patient. According to parameters of the method, precision is between 100% for gender and 53.48% for disorders.