Tailored Diabetes Self-Management Resources

Children with type 1 diabetes face complex self-management regimens which make adherence challenging and ultimately result in poor blood sugar control. Several common barriers interfere with diabetes control such as limited knowledge or challenges with staying motivated. Efficacious strategies exist to improve diabetes self-management including, but not limited to, diabetes education or family therapy. Patients and families often do not access these strategies, in part due to healthcare systems-based issues such as accessibility, provider availability, or insurance coverage. A family-centered approach has been suggested to tailor diabetes care to provide improved outcomes for each child. Family-centered care engages the family in the decision-making about the child's health and well-being. In this study we will take a family-centered approach to providing diabetes self-management by identifying families' unique self-management barriers through a 10-minute survey tool called PRISM (Problem Recognition in Illness Self-Management). Based upon the results of PRISM, we will provide tailored self-management resources (interventions) to meet the family's needs. We will coordinate group-based delivery of the resources with routine diabetes clinic visits. These group-based resources will be delivered in four 75-minute sessions over a year. The primary goal of this study is to compare the effectiveness of family-centered tailoring of diabetes self-management resources with the untailored approach of usual care. We hypothesize that the family-centered model of care with tailored resources will improve the outcomes of glycemic control and quality of life among children with type 1 diabetes and their parents.