Feasibility of Simulation in Therapeutic Patient Education for Adult Diabetic Patients Using the Freestyle Libre® Device

The benefits of Therapeutic Patient Education (TPE) have long been proven, but its implementation remains insufficient. It is only accessible to a part of the population and is too often limited to the acquisition of knowledge. TPE consists of supporting the patient in making decisions about his or her health, managing his or her life with the disease and treatment through the acquisition or maintenance of skills.

Simulation is a pedagogical method of creating fictional or reconstructed environments in order to develop skills, know-how and abilities for which direct instruction is impossible for ethical, economic or technical reasons. To date, it is recommended for the development of caregiver skills, and has been the subject of two studies among family caregivers. It seems likely that simulation will add value to the methods currently used in TPE.

To our knowledge, no studies have been conducted on simulation-based TPE (S-TPE) with patients.

A consensus conference, which is a rigorous method of comparing the opinions of experts in TPE, simulation, patient experts and caregivers, was held in order to determine the learning that could be developed through simulation and the conditions of use. However, since the patient is a specific type of learner, we hypothesize that there may be some additional conditions for the use of S-TPE. And the value of this approach remains to be demonstrated. Since the use of S-TPE has never been studied with patients, a feasibility test would make it possible to evaluate, in the context of care, the possibility of its use and its acceptance by both patients and caregivers. This is necessary before considering a multicenter trial that demonstrates an interest in developing patient skills. It was decided to carry out this study in patients with diabetes, a condition for which TPE is a precursor. Caregivers will be able to objectify the advantages and limitations of using S-TPE.