Improving Self-Management in Adolescents With Sickle Cell Disease

Participants complete the Patient Activation Measure (PAM-13), which is a 13 item measure on skills, knowledge, confidence and readiness for self-management developed by Hibbard et al., 2005. Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale of 1 = "Disagree Strongly" to 3 = "Strongly Agree." Raw scores range from 13 to 52 and are converted to scores that range from 0 to 100. This score was then divided into four levels of activation, which reflect a developmental progression from being passive with regard to one's health to being proactive: Level 1 (score of 0.0 - 47.0), Level 2 (47.1 - 55.1), Level 3 (55.2 - 72.4), and Level 4 (72.5 - 100). Higher scores indicate more behavioral activation.

Participants complete the Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ-5), which is a well-validated 20-item questionnaire that measures the skills needed to manage a chronic condition independently. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 = "No, I do not know how" to 5 = "Yes, I always do this when I need to" and divided into 5 subscales: Managing Medication, Appointment Keeping, Tracking Health Issues, Talking with Providers, and Managing Daily Activities. Overall and subscale scores are calculated by averaging the scores of answered items. Mean scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating better self-management.

Participants complete the UNC TRxANSITION Scale, an interview administered by trained independent evaluators to measure the skills of youth with chronic conditions. For this study, we administered 6 of the 10 possible subscales: Type of Chronic Health Condition, Medications, Adherence, Nutrition, Self-Management Skills, and New Health Care Providers. Each item is scored individually as either 1 (adequate knowledge/skill mastery), 0.5 (some knowledge/skill attainment), or 0 (no knowledge/skill attainment). Higher scores indicate better self-management. Subscale scores are calculated by dividing the patient's score by the total possible subscale score. Subscale scores are then combined to create a total score, ranging from 0 to 10, but since we only used 6 scales, 0 to 6. Total and subscale proportion scores were used in analyses.