New telemedicine systems have been designed to assist people suffering from diabetes in the management of their chronic disease. More recently the focus has been moving to portable systems equipped with Bluetooth. This study consists of evaluating an application called the Think Positive (T+) diabetes management software. It is a randomized controlled trial designed to compare, over a nine month period, a group of patients receiving usual care with a group of patients using the T+ system. The objectives of the study are to investigate the extent to which this telemedicine application helps patients control their blood sugar levels (HbA1c), as well as the extent to which its users consider it to be acceptable. The impact of its use on factors such as diabetes self-care, health status, quality of life, self-confidence in diabetes management, fear of hypoglycemia and illness representations will also be examined. Because of the supplementary real-time support and feedback that T+ offers, its use should lead to better outcomes in diabetes management than usual care does.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
86
T+ consists of the Glucometer paired with a cradle that transmits via Bluetooth blood glucose results to a mobile phone. Data is stored and sent to a secure website. The website can be accessed by the patient as well as by health care providers (HCP). HCP can discuss data on the phone and make recommendations via text messages to patients. Visual feedback (graphs and statistics) illustrating recent blood sugar levels patterns is automatically and immediately sent to the patient when data is transferred from the T+ phone.
University College London (UCL)
London, United Kingdom
Blood sugar levels (HbA1c)
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
BMI
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Number of Hypoglycemic events
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Blood pressure
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Diabetes self-care
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Diabetes self- efficacy
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Quality of life
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Health status
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Illness representations
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
User acceptability of T+
Time frame: 3 months, 9 months
Nurses' Perceptions of T+
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Self efficacy in using T+
Time frame: 3 months, 9 months
Health care utilization
Time frame: baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Self management
2 subscales of the HeiQ questionnaire.
Time frame: baseline, 3 months, 9 months
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