“It Feels like You’re Just Clawing Your Way Through”: Young Adults’ Experiences of Transitioning from Child and Adolescent to Adult Mental Health Services in Ireland

Transitioning from child to adult services is a significant event for young adults. The study aimed to explore the experiences of young adults who transitioned from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) in Ireland. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six young adults and analysed according to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Interpretations were subsequently viewed through the lens of transition theory. Findings indicate that the transition presents major challenges for young adults and can cause a deterioration in mental health, in the context of multiple concurrent life transitions, discontinuity of care, a dramatic culture shift in AMHS, and experiences of impersonal care. Participants expressed their view that AMHS clinicians did not know how to approach their treatment due to a lack of available options or diagnosis-specific expertise, leading these individuals to question the validity of their suffering; this is a novel finding in the context of previous transition research. The utility of transition theory in developing a CAMHS-AMHS transition framework is demonstrated.