Transition to Virtual Diabetes Self-Management Education Delivery in the Setting of Health Care Disruption for Adults With Diabetes and Their Support Persons.
Denise J Deverts, Margaret F Zupa, Edith C Kieffer and 8 others
PMID 41958056WHAT IT FOUND
Virtual and hybrid diabetes education allowed continued group participation during pandemic, but care-management call completion fell and support-person attendance rose in the family-focused arm.
Key findings
01The enrollment rate was 30% before the pandemic and 23% during it.
02Care-management calls were completed by 55% of patients enrolled during the pandemic and 78% of those enrolled before.
03Support-person diabetes education session participation in the family-focused arm increased from 2.3 of 6 sessions before the pandemic to 2.8 of 6 during it.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study took place in one community health center serving a mainly Spanish-speaking, low-resource community, so the findings may not apply elsewhere. The report is quasi-experimental and descriptive, so it cannot show that virtual delivery caused any change. Patients had to enroll with a support person, which may have selected for people with available help. Data on patients who declined to participate were limited. The open-ended participation question was added late, and about 30% of patients had already completed follow-up and did not answer it. The report focused on enrollment and attendance, not clinical outcomes.
Declared interests
Funding: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grants R01 DK116733 and P30DK092926. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The funder had no role in design, conduct, data management, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decision.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the virtual option as proof that it improves diabetes outcomes. This paper reports enrollment and attendance only, not A1C or self-management effects, and the design was quasi-experimental with many pandemic changes.