Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: For the last 2 years we have been giving regular diabetes education sessions in conjunction with our hospital school, based around maths skills. These went well, but we wanted to develop these further, making them more patient centred. We gained a grant from the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation and designed a 4 day programme with ‘The Puppet Project’ and ‘WAC arts’. This was done very much in collabaration with our hospital school who are very accomplished educators.

Method/design: 10 young people attended and split into two groups over four seperate sessions. On arrival they wrote each other name tags and we did an ice breaker. Every young person made a puppet, and during this time we had regular break out ‘circle time’ to discuss what diabetes meant to them and also for them to ask questions ‘How do i get diabetes?’ ‘Why did this person say\.. about my diabetes?’ It isnt true is it that sugar gave me diabetes?’, ‘What is a virus’ etc. The young people were told that they were going to design a diabetes script for their puppets and the theme was up to them as a group. Then they were to film they show themselves with their new skills.

Results: We believe the project was a resounding success as all the young people were desperate to ensure they could make all sessions, becoming increasingly vocal and confident. We obtained eight questionnaires from the ten participants and asked them to score each question out of five (average scores in brackets): useful talking to other children with diabetes (4.3). more confident discussing the myths about diabetes (3.5). making puppets was a good way to meet other children with diabetes (4.8). would rather describe their experiences on video rather than face-to-face (4.3). more likely to watch a video rather than listen to a doctor (4.4)

Conclusion: This project took diabetes education to a new level. All young people with diabetes should have the opportunity to learn in an exciting environment. We plan to role this out further accross our trust with our sister hospitals.