The adolescent challenge

In today's health‐care arena there are increasing demands from an ever‐enlarging number of specialities for ever‐more resources. One of these specialities is that of adolescent medicine, bridging the gap between the worlds of paediatrics and adult health‐care. Unfortunately adolescent medicine in Europe tends to be fragmented and largely unco‐ordinated [1,2]. With increasing numbers of adolescents with chronic illnesses surviving into adulthood, one aspect of adolescent medicine—transitional care—is in urgent need of development and research. With the current velocity of medical and surgical advancement, this area is likely to become an even greater challenge to both paediatric and adult specialists in the next few years. In spite of this, a survey of health authorities in the UK by the first (recently appointed) director of adolescent medicine in the UK revealed only 9.8% of health authorities had purchaser specifications on adolescent care facilities [1]. One of the methodological difficulties of research in this area is how to define ‘adolescence’ and a wide range of definitions is used. The start of adolescence is often defined as the onset of puberty and the end being marked by the completion of the majority of the tasks of adolescence (Table 1). This is reflected in the use of broad age ranges e.g. 10–20 years, WHO; 14–21 years, American Academy of Pediatrics.