Following advances in overall management and improved outcomes, an increasing number of adolescents with @entity299 are reaching adult age. @entity1 in general, including adolescents, seem to have a poor knowledge of their illness, which may further reflect in a less optimal quality of life. As a guide to their knowledge of their cardiac condition, adolescents were asked to draw a diagram of their @entity299 . Relatively well adolescents aged 12-20 years with a @entity299 were consecutively recruited from an ambulatory setting. All were asked to draw a picture of their @entity299 and describe their condition. A total of 120 @entity1 were recruited and had conditions varying from a hyperplastic right ventricle to a small @entity1757 . Only 60 (50%) of the @entity1 completed a drawing, of which one-third did so at the time of attendance. Nevertheless, there was no difference between the accuracy of the adolescents' drawings completed at home or at the clinic. Only three @entity1 drew an accurate diagram of their @entity299 . A further nine @entity1 drew a reasonably correct diagram, 13 @entity1 a partially correct diagram, whereas 35 @entity1 submitted incorrect diagrams. Adolescents with @entity299 , many having been cared for since infancy with regular cardiological reviews, had a poor anatomical knowledge of their @entity299 , as reflected by their inability to correctly draw their abnormality. These findings suggest the need for improved strategies in developing appropriate education programmes for this @entity1 population.

Adolescents' drawings of their XXXX .

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['Patients', 'patients', 'patient'] @entity1757 :: ('MESH:D006345', 'Disease') :: ['ventricular septal defect'] @entity299 :: ('MESH:D006331', 'Disease') :: ['cardiac lesion', 'cardiac disease', 'congenital cardiac abnormality', 'congenital cardiac disease', 'cardiac abnormality']
@entity299 :: (MESH:D006331,Disease) :: ['cardiac abnormality']
