Tuesday 6 September 2011

Diabetes communication technology - not how but what.

A chat line helps children and young adults with Type 1 diabetes [1] and mobile phone and web-based collaborative care helps adults with Type 2 diabetes [2]. However, telephone support for underserved ethnic minorities does not seem to help [3].

I feel that these mixed results of these new technologies (many published this year already) mean that efficacy is less to do with the mode of communication and more to do with the quality and relevance of the content of the communication with the diabetes team that is important. To compare these studies we need a lot more information about what was said, how it was said, how the teams were trained and supported, and the frequency of communication.


1. Iafusco D, Galderisi A, Nocerino I, Cocca A, Zuccotti G, Prisco F, Scaramuzza A. Chat line for adolescents with type 1 diabetes: a useful tool to improve coping with diabetes: a 2-year follow-up study. Diabetes Technol. Ther 2011 May;13(5):551-555. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21406010

2. Lyles CR, Harris LT, Le T, Flowers J, Tufano J, Britt D, Hoath J, Hirsch IB, Goldberg HI, Ralston JD. Qualitative evaluation of a mobile phone and web-based collaborative care intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Technol. Ther 2011 May;13(5):563-569. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21406018

3. Anderson DR, Christison-Lagay J, Villagra V, Liu H, Dziura J. Managing the space between visits: a randomized trial of disease management for diabetes in a community health center. J Gen Intern Med 2010 Oct;25(10):1116-1122. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20556536

No comments:

Post a Comment