Objective Transition may be associated with poor health outcomes, but limited data exist regarding inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Acquisition of self-management skills is felt to be important to this process. IBD specific checklists of such skills have been developed to aid in transition, but none has been well studied or validated. This study aimed to describe self-assessment of ability to perform tasks on one of these checklists and to explore the relationship to patient age and disease duration. Methods 10–21yr old patients with IBD were recruited. An iPad survey queried the patients for self-assessment of ability to perform specific self-management tasks. Task categories included: basic knowledge of IBD, doctor visits, medications and other treatments, and disease management. Associations with age and disease duration were tested with Spearman rank correlation. Results 67 patients (31 male) with Crohn's disease (n=40), ulcerative colitis (n=25), and indeterminate colitis (n=2) participated. Mean patient age was 15.8 ±2.5yr with median disease duration of 5yr (2mo-14yr). The proportion of patients who self-reported ability to complete a task without help increased with age for most tasks including: telling others my diagnosis (ρ=0.43, p=0.003), telling medical staff I do not like or am having trouble following a treatment (ρ=0.37, p=0.003), and naming my medications (ρ=0.28, p=0.02). No task significantly improved with disease duration. Conclusions Self-assessment of ability to perform some key tasks of transition appears to improve with age, but not with disease duration. Importantly, communication with the medical team did not improve with age, despite being of critical importance to functioning within an adult care model.

Increasing bowel wall restricted diffusion (lower ADC values) is associated with multiple MRI findings that are traditionally associated with active inflammation in pediatric small bowel Crohn disease.

Wide variation exists in the practice of infliximab administration in pediatric IBD. The effect of these variations on outcomes is unknown.

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