Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Mobile Communication Technology for Adolescents With Diabetes

Among patients with type I diabetes, adolescents struggle the most with self-management, which often results in poor glycemic control. Optimizing parent-patient interaction is crucial to improving self-management. Mobile technology with integrated glucose monitoring capability that links adolescents to providers may reduce parental hypervigilance and assist them to better understand self-management. .

This study will investigate a novel cell phone glucose monitoring system (CPGM) with the following specific aims:

1. To establish feasibility of a CPGM system as a component of an adolescent diabetes management program.
2. To determine if the technology will improve a) quality of parent-child relationship, b) patient quality of life, c) competence in diabetes management, and d) metabolic control.
3. To gather preliminary data for development of future intervention studies.

120 adolescents with type I diabetes will be randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group.

Experimental subjects will use the CPGM which will transmit all blood glucose data to a host computer. A nurse practitioner in the pediatric endocrinology clinic will determine need for telephone contacts based on evaluation of transmitted data. Subjects might be telephoned to discuss possible regimen adjustments, need for clinic visits, or referrals to additional services. Subjects will also be able to initiate contact with the project nurse. Control subjects will continue to receive standard care. .

This study will assess the effect of the intervention in the four primary domains stated in the specific aims.

These domains will be measured at baseline, three months, and six months.

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