Background: Information technology (IT) is increasingly being used in general practice to manage health care including type 2 diabetes. However, there is conflicting evidence about whether IT improves diabetes outcomes. This review of the literature about IT-based diabetes management interventions explores whether methodological issues such as sample characteristics, outcome measures, and mechanisms causing change in the outcome measures could explain some of the inconsistent findings evident in IT-based diabetes management studies. Methods: Databases were searched using terms related to IT and diabetes management. Articles eligible for review evaluated an IT-based diabetes management intervention in general practice and were published between 1999 and 2009 inclusive in English. Studies that did not include outcome measures were excluded. Results: Four hundred and twenty-five articles were identified, sixteen met the inclusion criteria: eleven GP focussed and five patient focused interventions were evaluated. Nine were RCTs, five non-randomised control trials, and two single-sample before and after designs. Important sample characteristics such as diabetes type, familiarity with IT, and baseline diabetes knowledge were not addressed in any of the studies reviewed. All studies used HbA_1c as a primary outcome measure, and nine reported a significant improvement in mean HbA_1c over the study period; only two studies reported the HbA_1c assay method. Five studies measured diabetes medications and two measured psychological outcomes. Patient lifestyle variables were not included in any of the studies reviewed. IT was the intervention method considered to effect changes in the outcome measures. Only two studies mentioned alternative possible causal mechanisms. Conclusion: Several limitations could affect the outcomes of IT-based diabetes management interventions to an unknown degree. These limitations make it difficult to attribute changes solely to such interventions.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the notion of a diabetes language restricted code or “dialect” and its effect on people with diabetes. Language is a complex phenomenon comprising verbal and nonverbal components used to communicate in human interactions. Information was collected from a literature review, during clinical consultations, and from an email survey. Language and the way clinicians use language affect motivation, behaviors, and outcomes of people with diabetes. Language is influenced by culture, experience, and familiarity with words and their use and is idiosyncratic. “Diabetes” is a particular restricted code or dialect that people with diabetes gradually learn to speak, usually after they are diagnosed with diabetes. The diabetes dialect contains many metric and target words and very few positive, encouraging words, and it is often discriminatory, negative, judgmental, labelling, distressing, and stigmatizing: for example, victim, sufferer, and lifestyle disease. Language codes/dialects can compound the already high levels of emotional distress and self-care burden associated with living with diabetes and can affect outcomes. The information presented in this article will be useful for clinicians caring for people with diabetes and will be helpful for professionals who develop information for people with diabetes and those who create policies and guidelines.

Building capacity in a changing health care system is a challenge for advanced nursing education programs. Master-level nursing education is increasingly becoming the required education level for specialist nurses, and additional studies are needed to learn more about students’ experiences and learning transitions while undertaking such education. This study aimed to explore nursing students’ experience of their learning transitions while undertaking advanced nursing education and to describe how they translated the new knowledge and competence they gained into clinical practice. We used a qualitative research design with narrative self-reported reflections. 34 nurses (95 % women) from both urban and rural areas working with children, with adults in outpatient and inpatient endocrinology clinics in hospitals or with adults, including older people, attending primary health care services participated in the study. We collected data at two time points 15 months apart. Time one was the first week of the advanced nursing education, and time two was the completion of the education program. We used Malterud’s modification of Giorgi’s phenomenological analysis, otherwise known as systematic text condensation, to analyze the data. Two core themes captured the participants’ experiences. The first theme was “assessing the situation of people with diabetes from a different perspective”, with the subthemes “an expanded perspective of practice and higher level of reflection”, “applying critical thinking in practice” and “changing patient-nurse relationships in diabetes care”. The second core theme was “a change in participants’ perception of their professional position”, with the subthemes “a greater knowledge base enhancing professional confidence” and “a more equal position within the professional team”. The study provides in-depth information about transition into advanced nursing education and can inform curriculum developers, nurse educators, policy-makers and nursing managers about how nursing education broadened participants’ perspectives of nursing and enhanced their confidence and professional position.