June 19, 2000 - Britto Earns Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant To Study Adolescent Healthcare
CINCINNATI -- Adolescents with chronic medical conditions face the dual challenges of coping with chronic illness and normal adolescent development. Unfortunately, these two challenges often come into conflict -- making adherence to treatment and better outcomes harder to achieve.
But a physician at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati's Adolescent Medicine Division has received a four-year, $240,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to enhance the quality of primary care for chronically ill adolescents. Maria Britto, MD, MPH, believes improved identification of adolescents' health-care preferences, combined with better physician-patient communication, can lead to improved patient satisfaction, adherence to treatment and better outcomes.
"Maximizing long-term health of this population will require high-quality primary care, including health counseling, intervention for risk behaviors, and assistance with the transition to independent healthcare and other adult roles," says Dr. Britto. "It's increasingly recognized that, for consumers, high-quality care is determined by physicians' skills in listening and caring. A child who has survived chronic illness must not be allowed to succumb as an adolescent to preventable risk behavior."
Dr. Britto's study will involve two phases: focus groups of adolescents and development of a new instrument to determine "how demographic, developmental, and disease-related factors affect primary care preferences, and that will determine how these preferences change over time," says Dr. Britto.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and healthcare. It concentrates its grantmaking in three goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic healthcare at reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse -- tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.
Contact Information
Crystal Baker,
crystal.baker@chmcc.org, 513-636-5638
