This project's long-term goal is to develop a system-level method to move existing, efficacious self-management resources into the hands of children with type 1 diabetes and their families. Over 175,000 US children have type 1 diabetes and face a lifetime of self-management decisions in an attempt to delay or prevent complications, avoid hypoglycemia, and maintain quality of life for themselves and their parents. Although efficacious self-management resources exist, most children with diabetes struggle to manage their disease. Several barriers to diabetes management exist, including knowledge, motivation, and family interactions. Because barriers are unique for each child and family, family-centered approaches are recommended. Currently, no systematic approach exists to identify and address each family's self-management barriers. Information from PRISM (Problem Recognition in Illness Self-Management), a 10-minute survey tool, could help families and clinicians make better decisions to address these barriers, ultimately improving outcomes, fostering family-centered diabetes care, and optimizing resource use.
This randomized, pragmatic trial will compare outcomes from PRISM-based, family-centered tailoring of self-management resources (intervention) to outcomes from the untailored approach of usual care. Our specific aims are to assess the effect of family-centered tailoring of diabetes self-management resources on outcomes that matter to the children and parents: glycemic control (A1c and fear of hypoglycemia) and child and parent quality of life.
Children 8-16 years old with diabetes (150 each in usual care and intervention groups) and their parents will be enrolled at two large pediatric diabetes clinics. We will 1) use PRISM to identify families' unique self-management barriers; 2) tailor self-management resources to identified barriers; and 3) coordinate group-based delivery of the resources with routine diabetes visits. The group-based resources will be delivered in four 75-minute sessions over 12 months. A1c will be assessed after sessions, along with fear of hypoglycemia and quality of life for the child and parent. We will compare outcomes with mixed-effects models.