About KLIK

Background of KLIK

Research has shown that the development of children and adolescents is pressurised physically, emotionally, socially, and at school when they are growing up with a chronic or life-threatening disease. Due to increased medical knowledge over the past decades, more and more children and adolescents with chronic illnesses grow up into adulthood. Because of this, it is important to pay regular attention to the quality of life of young chronically ill patients while they are growing up. Also, it is known that communicating about emotional problems to do with a chronic or life-threatening disease is important in adjusting to the disease and taking away insecurities and negative feelings.

To accomplish this, the KLIK method has been developed. KLIK is a web-based method which can be used to give a clear overview of the quality of life of a chronically ill child who needs to come to hospital for regular check-ups, and their parents.

KLIK is an abbreviation for Kwaliteit van Leven In Kaart (Dutch) which means monitoring Quality of life in daily clinical practice. By using the KLIK method, problems can be identified and discussed early on. In addition, relevant interventions can be offered to teach children and adolescents how to cope with their disease and to support parents of chronically ill children and adolescents.

In short, KLIK is a vital tool for improving the quality of healthcare for children and adolescents with chronic diseases.

The effectiveness of the KLIK method has been demonstrated by studies about the direct feedback of quality of life information to a doctor using Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO's) assembled into a KLIK PROfile. These studies demonstrate that emotional and social topics are discussed more frequently during an appointment with the doctor. In addition, problems at school are being flagged up more often. Moreover, doctors indicate that they are more satisfied with their consultation when the KLIK PROfile is used and the duration of the consultation does not appear to last longer.

Who is KLIK UK for?

KLIK has been developed for all children and adolescents from 0-18 years old with a (chronic) illness, but also for children and adolescents who have been hospitalised unexpectedly, and their parents.