Improving Disease Knowledge in Adolescents With Sickle Cell Disease

Increased knowledge about an illness can increase self-management among those afflicted. In order to facilitate people with sickle cell disease living a longer and healthier life, they should be taught to manage their illness.An adolescent with a chronic illness has many unique challenges, in addition to maneuvering the turbulent adolescence period itself. It has been that better knowledge and more positive perceptions of their illness equate not only to better control of their illness but also better quality of life.Studies have also shown the benefits of self-management: when patients are responsible for managing their own illness, their clinical outcomes and quality of life improve and they become less dependent on health care services. In this study we aim to examine if knowledge, and any changes in knowledge, will each have any association with Quality of Life (QOL) and their perceptions of their illness (IP). We also seek to investigate the effects of an educational booklet, as well as an intervention including the educational booklet with formal counselling on their knowledge, QOL and IPs.