Firm foundations: strength-based approaches to adolescent chronic disease

Chronic disease management is an increasingly important aspect of caring for adolescents. Strength-based approaches hold tremendous promise in the face of current challenges. Recent clinical innovations and research findings that provide evidence of the efficacy of strength-based approaches and represent a fundamental evolution in the clinical approach to adolescent care are reviewed.

Resilience and positive youth development are important conceptual frameworks in adolescent health, which have recently been brought into the clinic setting in the form of the strength-based approach to care. In parallel, studies of motivational interviewing, a strength-based technique with known efficacy in behavioral change, have begun to demonstrate clinical efficacy in various adolescent chronic disease applications. The coupling of a strength-based approach with motivational interviewing holds promise for not only modifying end behaviors but also helping teens to develop strengths and assets to promote general well-being and healthy development. This distinction in goals might be described as the difference between being transiently problem-free and durably problem-resistant.

Strength-based approaches, including motivational interviewing, hold tremendous potential for equipping providers to address the rapidly increasing burden of chronic disease in adolescents.