“The Follow-up and Community Care of the Child with a Chronic Disease” aiming to contribute to the struggle to ensure the effective participation of children with chronic diseases in social life as individuals with high self-confidence; combines the knowledge and experience needed in the field of child healthcare.
Some biological, sociological, and economic factors substantially trigger chronic pathological processes in children; however, developments in the diagnostic and treatment methods in medical science have naturally lead to an increase in the detection of children with chronic diseases. Making them confident and productive adults of tomorrow depends on our ability to mobilize our resources. It includes sustaining the social cost of follow-up, treatment, and care of today’s children with chronic diseases at an optimal level. This struggle will last for 50–60 years on an average. The strengths we rely on this struggle are the medical science, competent labor of healthcare professionals, and hope of families. However, mobilizing these forces requires a public management strategy that will allocate public resources in accordance with the target. During the maturation of the book, we observed that there may be difficulties in the transition from pediatric to adult care for adolescents with chronic diseases. Therefore, studies to develop transition clinics with a multidisciplinary approach in the management of adolescents with chronic diseases are needed.
Parents hope that their child with a chronic disease will become an adult who participates and contributes to society with the most independent level of living possible. Being able to mobilize this power of hope of families to enable children to use and develop their capacities depends on healthcare professionals. They should build a relationship based on mutual trust with parents by clearly understanding and stating the chronic pathology and clinical processes. Acquiring this skill requires healthcare professionals to be equipped with the necessary knowledge about primary care follow-up and community-based care of a child with a chronic disease.
In the book, chronic diseases or problems, which are increasing in frequency and warrant follow-up and care at the community level, are presented. Great care has been taken to benefit from the methods of the discipline of social pediatrics, which combine the knowledge and experience of child health and diseases with epidemiology; primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention as well as intervention methods; and transform them into tools at the community level.
The capacity to regulate the system and organ functions during the growth and development, especially during adolescence, positively affects chronic pathological processes. Hence, care has been taken to include those based on strong evidence in the treatment methods.
The most important difference in children with chronic diseases is their special needs. Based on the principle of medicine: there is no disease, there is a patient; and inclusivity, the expression “child with (disease name)” is used instead of completely defining the child with a chronic disease.
Preparing the text was a professionally challenging and personally gratifying experience. Although developments in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases continue, the need for consensus reports and the development of Turkish terminology, especially on the follow-up of children with chronic diseases was observed.
It is a great honor for us, as editors, to publish this comprehensive work in the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Türkiye, founded under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who actively advocated “determining impact of child health and education on the future of nations.” |
