Diabetes, social media

BACKGROUND: Glycaemic target recommendations vary widely between international professional organisations for women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Some studies have reported women's experiences of having GDM, but little is known how this relates to their glycaemic targets. The aim of this study was to identify enablers and barriers for women with GDM to achieve optimal glycaemic control. METHODS: Women with GDM were recruited from two large, geographically different, hospitals in New Zealand to participate in a semi-structured interview to explore their views and experiences focusing on enablers and barriers to achieving optimal glycaemic control...

INTRODUCTION: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a leading health priority worldwide. Multimorbidity (MM) is a term describing the co-occurrence of two or more chronic diseases or conditions. The majority of people living with T2D have MM. The relationship between MM and mortality and glycaemia in people with T2D is not clear. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Medline, Embase, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Complete, The Cochrane Library, and SCOPUS will be searched with a prespecified search strategy...

Several studies, such as the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), have provided foundational evidence for the efficacy of lifestyle interventions on weight loss and cardiometabolic prevention. However, translating these interventions to real-world settings and engaging at-risk populations has proven difficult. Social media-delivered interventions have high potential for reaching high-risk populations, but there remains a need to understand the extent to which these groups are interested in social media as a delivery mode...

OBJECTIVES: Determine the feasibility of using a diabetes risk assessment tool followed by HbA1c-measurement in a community-pharmacy setting in Norway. METHODS: In this longitudinal study two pharmacists in each of three community pharmacies were trained to perform risk assessments, HbA1c-measurements and counselling. Pharmacy customers who were > 18 years old and could understand and speak Norwegian or English were recruited in the pharmacies during a two-months-period...

BACKGROUND: Hypoglycaemia is associated with increased mortality, length of stay, readmission and adverse events. Nursing management of hypoglycaemia is a challenge, despite established best practice guidelines. Social media is an effective tool for sharing information, and had potential to overcome barriers to clinical education at a multi-centre hospital. AIMS: The purpose of this quality improvement intervention was to create and disseminate social media posts about best practices in hypoglycaemia management...

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is a major health care burden in the Middle East region. Social networking tools can contribute to the management of diabetes with improved educational and care outcomes using these popular tools in the region. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review was to evaluate the impact of social networking interventions on the improvement of diabetes management and health outcomes in patients with diabetes in the Middle East. METHODS: Peer-reviewed articles from PubMed (1990-2017) and Google Scholar (1990-2017) were identified using various combinations of predefined terms and search criteria...

The use of Facebook groups by health care researchers and professionals for chronic disease management, namely type 2 diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease, is in its early stages and challenges are emerging. While Facebook groups offer great potential to deliver health support, research of Facebook groups for chronic disease management remains in its infancy, with robust evidence not yet available. Designing Facebook groups that are acceptable to users, health care researchers as well as health care professionals is a challenge, and there is a poor fit with traditional research and evaluation methods...

BACKGROUND: Young people with type 1 diabetes are at increased risk of mental disorders. Whereas treatment need is high, difficulty recruiting young people with type 1 diabetes into psychosocial studies complicates development, testing and dissemination of these interventions. OBJECTIVE: Interviews with young adults with type 1 diabetes were conducted to examine attitudes towards mental health and mental health research, including barriers and motivators to participation in mental health studies and preferred sources of mental health support...

BACKGROUND: Our objectives were to describe individuals' motivations for participation in an online social media community and to assess their level of trust in medical information provided by medical professionals and community members. METHODS: A purposive survey was delivered to participants recruited through posts on the CGM in the Cloud group, Twitter, and blogs. Individuals were asked a series of demographic and social media use questions. RESULTS: A total of 1268 members of the CGM in the Cloud community responded to the survey...

Many Native American communities experience severe health inequalities, including shorter average lifespan and higher rates of chronic illnesses. Journalism that serves Native Americans is a promising channel for heath communication, but only if scholars first understand the particular cultural contexts of indigenous communities. This research contributes to that goal by investigating how journalists serving Native American communities characterize health and the issues they identify with covering determinants of health...

INTRODUCTION: Health care access for medically underserved patients managing chronic conditions is challenging. While telemedicine can support patient education and engagement, the "digital divide" may be particularly problematic among the medically underserved. This study evaluated physical access to digital devices, use of e-mail and social media tools, and perceptions of telemedicine among American Indian (AI) patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS: Survey data were collected from AI patients with DM during teleophthalmology exams...

Diabetes mellitus is a common chronic disease affecting approximately 9% of the United States population. Successful management of diabetes demands constant self-management on the part of the patient. The patient has to balance diabetes medications, blood glucose monitoring, food intake, physical activity, and management of diabetes-related acute and chronic complications. The patient is often bombarded with misinformation from friends, relatives, and such sources as the Internet and social media. This article discusses the current recommendations for diabetes self-management education and skills including medical nutrition therapy, physical activity, smoking cessation, and assessment for diabetes distress...

There is growing awareness that user-generated social media content contains valuable health-related information and is more convenient to collect than typical health data. For example, Twitter has been employed to predict aggregate-level outcomes, such as regional rates of diabetes and child poverty, and to identify individual cases of depression and food poisoning. Models which make aggregate-level inferences can be induced from aggregate data, and consequently are straightforward to build. In contrast, learning models that produce individual-level (IL) predictions, which are more informative, usually requires a large number of difficult-to-acquire labeled IL examples...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this literature review was to summarise current research regarding how consumers seek health-related information from social media. Primarily, we hope to reveal characteristics of existing studies investigating the health topics that consumers have discussed in social media, ascertaining the roles social media have played in consumers' information-seeking processes and discussing the potential benefits and concerns of accessing consumer health information in social media...

BACKGROUND: Subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) therapy is a challenge for both patients and healthcare providers. The long-term CSII use is scarce. The aim of this study is to describe the impact of CSII therapy for 10 years of use at our center. METHODS: This single-center retrospective study includes 162 type 1 diabetes patients using CSII for >3 years during October 2004 until October 2014. Data were collected through the electronic medical record system, cross-sectional analysis (telephone, e-mail, or social media), and CSII reports generated by Carelink Therapy Management Software (Medtronic, Northridge, CA)...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review describes the state-of-the-art for dietary assessment using smartphone apps and digital technology and provides an update on the efficacy of technology-mediated interventions for dietary change. RECENT FINDINGS: Technology has progressed from apps requiring entry of foods consumed, to digital imaging to provide food intake data. However, these methods rely on patients being active in data collection. The automated estimation of the volume and composition of every meal consumed globally is years away...

INTRODUCTION: Physical activity, healthy eating and maintaining a healthy weight are associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer and with improved mental health. Despite these benefits, many men do not meet recommended physical activity guidelines and have poor eating behaviours. Many health promotion programmes hold little appeal to men and consequently fail to influence men's health practices. HAT TRICK was designed as a 12-week face-to-face, gender-sensitised intervention for overweight and inactive men focusing on physical activity, healthy eating and social connectedness and was delivered in collaboration with a major junior Canadian ice hockey team (age range 16-20 years)...

Diabetes care is largely dependent on patient self-management and empowerment, given that patients with diabetes must make numerous daily decisions as to what to eat, when to exercise, and determine their insulin dose and timing if required. In addition, patients and providers are generating vast amounts of data from many sources, including electronic medical records, insulin pumps, sensors, glucometers, and other wearables, as well as evolving genomic, proteomic, metabolomics, and microbiomic data. Multiple digital tools and apps have been developed to assist patients to choose wisely, and to enhance their compliance by using motivational tools and incorporating incentives from social media and gaming techniques...

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) has been one of the most common chronic diseases that create great impacts on both morbidities and mortalities. Many patients who suffering from this disease seek for complementary and alternative medicine. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and related factors of herbal and dietary supplement (HDS) use in patients with DM type 2 at a single university hospital in Thailand. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed in 200 type 2 DM patients via face-to-face structured interviews using developed questionnaires comprised of demographic data, diabetes-specific information, details on HDS use, and medical adherence...

BACKGROUND: The extensive vaccination programme against swine flu resulted in an increased incidence of narcolepsy among children and adolescents. There is a need to explore if these young persons' experiences have affected their trust in healthcare, their willingness to participate in future prevention programmes, and their contacts with the healthcare system. The overall aim is to identify factors important for the life-situation of children and adolescents with narcolepsy and their families, and factors that correlate with trust in healthcare...