Telehealth Lifestyle Redesign Occupational Therapy for Diabetes: Preliminary Effectiveness, Satisfaction, and Engagement.

Only part of the trial sample is here. The telehealth trial is still running, and this analysis covers only participants who had finished the six-month therapy by August 2022. The outcomes were measured before and after therapy with no comparison group. These measures were not collected from the usual care arm, so the improvements could reflect time, attention, or regression to the mean rather than the therapy itself. Only 40 of the 70 people who started the occupational performance measure had scores at discharge. People who were doing better at the start were less likely to be measured again, which makes the average improvement look larger than it may be. Incomplete data entry while the trial is running also reduced the numbers available and the study's ability to detect differences.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health / National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (grant R01DK116719-01A1). The funder's role in designing or writing up the work is not described.

Do not read these improvements as proof that telehealth occupational therapy works. The measures were never collected from the people assigned to usual care, so nothing here rules out other explanations such as regression to the mean. Only 40 of the 70 people who started the occupational performance measure had scores at discharge, and those who dropped out had been scoring higher at the start.