Communitas: A Program for Teens Living With Chronic Illness and Their Families

The proposed pilot study is an evaluation of Communitas, a mind-body skills group visit and for 12-19 year-olds living with chronic physical illness. The goal of this study is to assess the efficacy and feasibility of these group visits. During 2017-2018, the investigators will recruit 50-100 patient and 50-100 parent enrollees of Communitas to participate in this study. The study will be a pre-post evaluation, without a control group, using validated patient-report assessments at baseline, after completion of the group visits, and 3 months later. The primary outcome variables will be physical and mental wellbeing, stress, mood, resilience, mindfulness, and social support. Paired t tests will be used to assess changes from baseline to immediately post-intervention \& 3 months post-intervention. The investigators will also calculate Cohen's d effect sizes, to help them understand the degree to which an effect is present in the population.