A qualitative interview study of people living with well-controlled Type 1 diabetes

Abstract

Objective:

While many people with Type 1 diabetes find it difficult to achieve recommended blood glucose levels, a minority do achieve good control. Our study was conceived by patient and public (PP) partners and sought to learn about experiences of people living with well-controlled diabetes.

Design:

A collaboration between academic health psychologists and five PP partners with experience of diabetes, who were trained to conduct and analyse semi-structured interviews. Fifteen adults with well-controlled Type 1 diabetes were interviewed about the history of their diabetes and their current self-management practices. Interviews were subjected to inductive thematic analysis.

Results:

Eight sub-themes were arranged into two overarching themes, ‘facing up to diabetes’ and ‘balance leads to freedom’. Participants described a process of acceptance and mastery of diabetes, and talked about how they gained a deeper understanding of bodily processes through trial and error.

Conclusion:

Based on the experiences of people with well-controlled Type 1 diabetes, interventions for people with this condition should encourage acceptance of the diagnosis and increasing confidence to experiment with behaviours (trial and error) to encourage ‘mastery’ of self-management. The research collaboration described here is an example of best practice for future researchers wanting to actively engage PP partners.

Keywords:

• qualitative research
• semi-structured interviews
• patient and public involvement
• thematic analysis
• Type 1 diabetes
• well-controlled glucose levels

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Diabetes UK for their help advertising the study and the people living with Type 1 diabetes who responded to the advert.