In January 2021, our team was given the opportunity to present in the rapid-fire poster presentation session at the Transitions to Adulthood Pop-Up Event hosted by Children’s Healthcare Canada. We gave a two-minute talk on the importance of hospital resources as transition memory for individuals with sex variations when transitioning through healthcare. These resources can be important in serving as an educational resource, but also to promote self-management as individuals gain more autonomy.

Further, we discussed our findings from an environmental scan of hospital website resources geared towards variations in sex development.  We found a total of 105 resources across the total 13 Canadian Children’s Hospital websites. However, the number of resources per site varied greatly, with six hospitals having no resources geared towards sex variation.

Given the limited number of resources aimed at individuals with sex variations and their caregivers, we encourage the creation of high quality, scientifically backed resources by hospitals. We also encourage that individuals and their families collect medical notes and resources throughout care, so that new providers may have a full medical history of the individual, and the individual may access this information later on in life, if they choose to do so.

You can check out our full poster and abstract here, or you can also head on over to the event summary page where you can take a look at the event recap, speakers, and the poster hall to find out more information on current care, research, and patient perspectives on healthcare transitions.