STANFORD, Calif. — People with type-2 diabetes can learn life skills for daily management of their disease during a free online workshop and study. Without proper management, diabetes can lead to such complications as cardiac problems, high blood pressure, strokes and kidney failure.

 

The online workshop—“Self-Management @ Stanford: Healthier Living with Diabetes”—lasts for six weeks. Participants in the study will be followed for two years to determine how effective the Internet can be in helping people learn skills to manage their diabetes. It is hoped that participants will improve their blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose and weight. The investigators will also be looking for improvements in quality of life, exercise and depression.

 

The study is organized by the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Patient Education Research Center, which has been developing tools for chronic disease self-management for 20 years. Kate Lorig, DrPH, a professor of medicine and a nurse who has long been involved in developing and monitoring patient self-management programs, is the principal investigator on the study.

 

Lorig’s team said that diabetes patients often don’t get enough help from their primary health-care providers; they explain that their workshops are intended to complement instructions from patients’ physicians.

 

By teaching self-management skills to an audience online, researchers are aiming to reach people who are unable to attend community classes or who might not be interested in in-person gatherings. Participants need to be adults living in the United States with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of type-2 diabetes, who have Internet access and who have an e-mail account. Participants may not have received treatment for cancer in the past year or be pregnant.

 

During the six weekly workshops, two trained, lay facilitators, who also have diabetes, will moderate online groups of about 25 people with type-2 diabetes. Participants are asked to log on, at their convenience, two or three times each week for a total of less than two hours weekly. Sessions are highly interactive through e-mail, messaging and online discussion boards, but participants do not need to log on at the same time. Workshop topics include: blood glucose management; healthy eating; understanding A1C, lipids, body mass index and blood pressure numbers; weight control; exercise; hypoglycemia; managing sick days; working with health-care providers, and managing emotions and relationships.

 

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: those who receive the workshop; those who receive the workshop and participate in a yearlong e-mail discussion group, or those in a control group who receive the usual care. All three groups will complete four online questionnaires about their health status; members of the control group will also receive a gift certificate after completing each questionnaire, as well as a copy of the book used in the workshop at the end of the two-year period.

 

 

For more information, read the fact sheet or call (800) 366-2624 or e-mail: diabetes@med.stanford.edu.

 

Workshops are also being offered specifically for Native Americans who are living with diabetes. Registration for Native American workshops

 

The study is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.