Research Description
This research will test an intervention designed to improve self-care in teenagers living with type 1 diabetes. Living with type 1 diabetes involves multiple daily self-care tasks that are critical to health and life. There can be serious health consequences if those tasks, such as monitoring blood glucose and taking insulin, are not carried out consistently. Teenagers living with type 1 diabetes face these self-care challenges in the context of other challenges related to their social and emotional development. Self-care can be negatively impacted by social and emotional experiences such as the experience of stigma, feeling burned out with self-care, and difficulty communicating with parents. Because self-care is difficult, the consequences of inadequate self-care are serious, and the psychosocial needs of teenagers are unique, we have proposed the Discovery Program. This program will uniquely work to help teens identify their own psychosocial challenges, set goals with their diabetes care provider, and receive personalized mobile phone support for their goal between clinic appointments. The mobile phone support includes digital stories made by other teens that demonstrate how they overcame similar psychosocial challenges. We believe that this approach will be more successful than previous programs because the intervention is embedded in the routine diabetes care, does not increase workload for clinicians and stories will engage teens to learn with their peers.Research Profile
What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?This research focuses on the implementation and evaluation of the Discovery Program to improve self-management in adolescents living with type 1 diabetes. The program is designed to identify and reduce psychosocial barriers to self-management through individual feedback on psychosocial barriers, one-on-one goal setting and problem solving with a nurse practitioner, and tailored mobile media and communications between routine care visits to support self-management goals. The program is designed to be implemented within clinical informatics systems and does not require a mobile app providing a generalizable model for scaling up and dissemination.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?In the future, the program will be readily available within clinics that adolescents and young adults receive treatment. Teens and families will not have to search outside of care for effective programs, as it will be available where they receive their diabetes care. Participation in the program will help them become aware of their own habits and barriers to self-management related to social situations, feelings, and other aspects of taking care of diabetes such as talking to people about diabetes. They will be able to understand how other teens solve similar problems, learn from others and will likely feel more confident about solving the challenges that they are facing.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?Personally, it has been important for me to be involved in diabetes research because I recognize the isolation and burn out that people living with diabetes can face. I am motivated by the knowledge that there are feasible solutions to the developmental and psychosocial challenges young people face in living with diabetes and that, as researchers, we can provide evidence of what works. This award will have an incredible impact on my ability to implement what have been identified as very promising approaches to facilitate self-management improvement. It will allow integration into routine care, where we know we have a regular opportunity to engage people in care and provide support. The award will also allow me to test hypotheses about the role tailored mobile communications can play in diabetes care.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I see psychosocial research in diabetes expanding and evolving in very meaningful ways to meet the needs of families. Integration of technologies to collect relevant behavioral data, provide support and integrate those aspects of diabetes with device data will provide insights for improvement. Tailoring the types of support people living with diabetes receive, within and between clinic visits, could enhance engagement, reduce burn out and address individual and family needs in a meaningful and timely way.