Grant: Project Grant

Although transition between health services is widely recognized as a problematic health systems hurdle, the factors necessary for successful transition from child to adult mental health services are poorly understood. Further, fragmentation and non-uniformity among mental health organizations serve to exacerbate mental illness and create unnecessary challenges for youth and their families. The objective of this study is to improve the outcomes of transitional aged youth (ages 16-22) with psychiatric disorders by providing front-line mental health service providers and decision-makers with evidence on factors that facilitate or impede mental health care transitions and on the effect of transitioning on youth and their families. This will be accomplished by completing a 3-year longitudinal cohort study to examine continuity of care, psychiatric symptoms, functioning, and service-use of youth aged 16-18 with mental illness as they transition from child to adult mental health services. Participants will be recruited from child and youth psychiatric programs at 4 large academic health science centres and assessed annually over 3 years using standardized measures of psychiatric symptoms, functioning, and service utilization. In addition, youth and their caregivers will inform the study design and knowledge translation methods through a patient-oriented research strategy and integrated knowledge translation methods. The results will have important implications for youth, families and clinicians regarding identifying enablers and barriers to optimal transitions and supporting the development and evaluation of clinical interventions to enhance continuity of care.