Exploring Shared Stress Experiences Among Teens With Chronic Health Conditions.

Only 15 teens were interviewed, and the authors say the number was limited by funding and time. So these themes show what this small group said, not how common these experiences are. Teens put themselves forward for the interview part of the study, so the findings may reflect the experiences of teenagers who were ready and willing to talk about them. Most interviews happened during the summer, which the authors say could have changed what teens were stressed about. To protect confidentiality the paper gives almost no further detail about who took part, so you cannot judge how closely they match the teenagers you see. Teens with a cognitive or developmental disability, or a severe mental health condition such as bipolar disorder, were not eligible, so their experiences are missing. The study is cross-sectional. It captures one point in these teens' lives and cannot show whether these experiences change as they get older. The authors say some experiences seemed specific to certain conditions, so the shared themes will not cover everything a particular teenager is dealing with.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. One author was supported by a National Institutes of Health training grant. The work also received a research and scholarship award from the UW-Madison School of Nursing and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a Clinical and Translational Science Award, and support from the Real-World Evidence to Advance Community Health (REACH) Program, which the paper says is funded 70% by federal grants and 30% by nongovernmental sources. No company that makes or sells a treatment is named as a funder.

Do not read this as evidence that any particular programme or approach works for teenagers with chronic conditions, and do not read it as a measure of how common these experiences are. Fifteen teenagers who volunteered to be interviewed described their own stress, so the themes show what this group said, not what most teenagers with these conditions feel or how many of them are being dismissed by clinicians.