The prevalence of chronic illness or disability in adolescence has increased in recent years due to medical advances, and adolescents are now more than ever able to lead a productive life even in spite of serious illness. In the past, children with many diseases would not reach adolescence, but over the last decade or more the survival rate for children with cystic fibrosis, for spina bifida and congenital heart disease has increased. The old morbidity (infectious disease, poor housing, poverty, lack of immunisation) has been exchanged with the new morbidity of adolescence, where a longer...