Publications by authors named "Blanca Sanchez-Fournier"

Aims: Health care transition (HCT) to adult care and young adult disease self-management is a multi-step process involving three major stakeholders - the adolescent, the caregiver, and the provider. Preparation gaps exist within each of these stakeholder groups. This paper presents the development of the Intervention to Promote Autonomy and Competence in Transition-aged Youth (IPACT), a multi-level (adolescent, caregiver, provider), multi-modal (interactive skill building sessions, educational materials, videos) intervention to address gaps in all three stakeholder groups simultaneously and help support achieving the three core elements of HCT planning.

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Study Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a group-based peer-mentor intervention to enhance knowledge/skills of transition-age youth (TAY) from three clinical services (gastroenterology, renal or rheumatology) at a large children's hospital in order to facilitate transition from pediatric to adult healthcare.

Design And Methods: Using a multi-modal, iterative approach, the structure/content of the intervention was based on peer-reviewed literature; surveys/interviews conducted with TAY, families, and adult and pediatric providers; principles of Self-Determination Theory and motivational interviewing; and guided by a logic model. A TAY community advisory board helped interpret the information and develop the intervention.

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Study Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relevancy and fit of a proposed group-based, peer-mentored intervention, based on the principles of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), to facilitate the development of health self-management skills needed to transition from pediatric to adult-based healthcare.

Design And Methods: Individual in-depth interviews with 28 transition-age youth (TAY) ages 17-22 and 24 caregivers (parents) from Gastroenterology, Renal and Rheumatology clinical services assessed interests in and preferred content, timing of and format for an intervention to help youth build self-management skills. Descriptive statistics were used for short answer questions and rating scales.

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Objective: To describe changes in functional status between the last pediatric and first adult congenital heart disease (CHD) clinic visits in patients with moderate to severe CHD after implementing a healthcare transition (HCT) planning program.

Design: Quasi-experimental design. Patients were followed prospectively following the implementation of the intervention; Control patients transitioned from the Pediatric CHD Clinic into Adult CHD Clinic before the intervention.

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An electronic medical record (EMR)-based transition planning tool (TPT) designed to facilitate transition from pediatric to adult-based health care for youth (16-25 years) with special health care needs was introduced at a large children's hospital. Activities to increase provider use were implemented in five plan-do-study-act cycles. Overall, 22 of 25 (88%) consenting providers in four pediatric subspecialty services used the TPT during 303 patient encounters, with nurses and case-managers the top users and physicians the least likely users.

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Objective: In an effort to develop more effective weight-loss interventions, this study examined the daily experiences and personal struggles of Mexican-American adolescent females with morbid obesity.

Methods: Twenty self-identified, morbidly obese Mexican-American adolescent females and their families were interviewed about their food choices, personal and family barriers to weight loss, sources of support, previous weight-loss experience, and weight-related beliefs. Qualitative responses were coded by using framework analysis.

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