An unexpected turn in Melissa Moynihan’s life marked the starting point of a new phase in her nursing career. Moynihan (MSN ‘13), was injured in a car accident, making a return to working in acute care challenging. Completing a graduate degree had always been a goal, and Moynihan applied to the MSN program at UBC.

For her master’s thesis, Moynihan helped revise and validate a questionnaire for youth with special health care needs titled “Am I ONTRAC for Adult Care?” (TRAC is an acronym for Transitioning Responsibly to Adult Care).

In BC, youth with chronic illnesses and disabilities who are 18 and older typically can no longer attend paediatric medical clinics and must transfer to adult medical care settings. Adolescents with special health care needs are faced with a variety of challenges when they transition to adult care.

“Being able to assess these youths’ readiness for transition has implications for how to improve care,” says Moynihan. “Youth are at risk of being lost between pediatric and adult care and at increased risk of withdrawing from health care services.”

The ultimate goal is to be able to predict successful transition to adult care, which would hopefully lead to better outcomes for the patient and improved navigation of the adult medical system. In order to evaluate if this tool can predict successful transition, it needs to be used in clinics over an extended period of time.

BC Children’s Hospital is now working towards having the questionnaire used in their outpatient clinics.

“I was surprised with how receptive the clinicians and staff at BC Children’s Hospital were to having me recruit participants from their clinics for my thesis study,” says Moynihan. “I had no affiliation with BC Children’s and was apprehensive, however the clinicians and staff welcomed me and I developed good relationships with them which contributed to my positive thesis experience.”

Following the completion of her thesis, Moynihan started work as a research nurse in the leukemia/bone marrow transplant program at Vancouver General Hospital. Completing a PhD in Nursing is a future goal.

“Nursing research spans a broad range of topics and has a holistic approach. This enables nursing research to better understand the many factors that affect an individual’s or population’s health and well-being which is essential to promoting health and improving outcomes.”