Transition Readiness Not Associated With Measures of Health in Youth With IBD

It remains unclear how transition readiness is associated with various domains of health in children and young adults. Our objective was to describe the transition readiness of children and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and examine its associations with demographic factors, IBD activity, and measures of physical, psychological, and social health.

We recruited children ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 20 from 2 internet-based cohorts sponsored by the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. Participants self-reported demographics, IBD activity, transition readiness, health-related quality of life, and Patient-Reported Outcomes Information Systems domains of physical, psychological, and social health.

Among 361 pediatric and 119 adult participants, age and female sex were associated with transition readiness. The association was greater in the pediatric cohort. Having IBD in remission was associated with worse transition readiness in the pediatric cohort only (beta = 0.3; P = 0.003). Health-related quality of life and Patient-Reported Outcomes Information Systems measures of fatigue, pain interference, and sleep disturbance were not associated with transition readiness in either children or adults. We observed few small associations between psychological or social health and transition readiness. Better transition readiness was associated with greater anxiety in adults (beta = -0.02; P = 0.02) and greater peer relationships among children (beta = 0.01; P = 0.009).

In children and young adults with IBD, transition readiness was associated with older age and female sex. Associations between transition readiness and physical, psychological, and social health were either small, inconsistent across age groups, or nonexistent.