Endocrine Abstracts

Diabetes mellitus education for children, young people and their families has become more complex in recent years, requiring a solid knowledge of mathematics, problem solving and ongoing adjustments as the child grows. The education at time of diagnosis can be overwhelming for many parents who are coming to terms with this lifelong condition. But we, as diabetes teams also expect them to take on new and alien tasks, not only blood glucose testing and injecting insulin, but also understanding nutritional labels, calculating carbohydrates in meals and determining a safe dose of a very potent drug. All this whilst their child grows and develops frequently changing the goal posts. This is daunting for the best of us but can be hugely challenging for parents who struggled educationally and were glad to leave their school days behind them. The Belfast Trust is situated in an area of increased economic and social deprivation, and with the legacy of ‘the troubles’, has a high percentage of parents who have limited education and health literacy. We frequently encounter parents who cannot grasp the various aspects of the daily management of their child’s diabetes, despite the best efforts of the team. We realised we needed to adapt the general education tools we had available, with increased ‘one to one‘ teaching and simplifying our educational material. The CHOICE team, who provide structured education in CHO counting, tailored their teaching specifically for these parents. We focused on giving simple, clear and direct instructions to manage their child’s condition, for example hypoglycaemic treatment and sick day rules. We also introduced an interactive educational tool called DEAAP; which provides short, colourful and engaging diabetes educational cartoons. The parents can download this app on to their phone for continued learning at their own pace. This kit also includes interactive teaching aids, helping to address all methods of learning. The education is provided mainly by the nurses and dietitians, who continually gauge parental understanding throughout education sessions and adapt resources to make the learning appropriate for each family.