Endocrine Abstracts

Clinicians know that adolescence is a very difficult time to support young people in managing their diabetes. Studies, including the DCCT, consistently show that the average HbA1c of this age group is significantly higher than in any other age group. This talk aims to explore the possible reasons for this consistent finding and highlight how normal adolescent development can explain much of this variation. By understanding the young peoples’ needs, management plans can be developed to support them. There are a number of tools available from interview techniques to new technologies that can assist the clinician in supporting young people. Clinical experience of some of these modalities will be presented.