Mobile Communication Technology for Adolescents With Diabetes

Study Summary

Among those with type I diabetes, adolescents can be among the worst at achieving glycemic control. Behaviors normal in adolescent development (e.g., developing independence, rejecting parental norms in favor of peers) can be at odds with the demands of effective diabetes self-management. Modifying the family and patient interaction should be a crucial component to improving the ability of an adolescent to manage his or her diabetes. Mobile technology is becoming more popular in medicine, and adolescents, as a group are more inclined to accept technology as an adjunct to care. Mobile technology that links adolescents to health providers could help them to work through complex information that must be processed to make good decisions. Since this "assistance" comes from health professionals, it should help relax parents somewhat, thus reducing problems associated with parental hypervigilance and manipulation of the regimen to avoid problems of hypoglycemia. Parental-child conflicts may therefore be reduced by using cell phone glucose monitoring technology that directly reports self-blood glucose monitoring data to providers and creates a communication link to discuss therapeutic options. This study investigates whether the use of mobile technology, in the form of a cell phone glucose monitoring system, will help reduce the need for parents to assert behavioral control, which can negatively impact adolescent diabetes self-management. The study will also determine whether adolescents report improved quality of life, demonstrate competence in diabetes management, and are able to achieve better control of their diabetes.

Primary Outcome

The Cornell Parent Behavior Description Scale was used to measure the antecedents and consequences of children's perceptions of the behavior of their parents towards them. Each of 14 subscales is scored from 0-10. The potential range of the total score is therefore 0 (fewest behaviors) to 140 (most behaviors). We used the total score, which is equivalent to the sums of the subscales, and calculated the change from baseline to 6 months. The range of the change is given as a 95% CI. A change of ze

Interventions

• OTHER Usual Care
• DEVICE GlucoPak
• DEVICE Cell Phone