ESPE Abstracts

Background: Managing diabetes requires self-care, knowledge and support – especially when moving from pediatric to adult care. Finding ways to empower young people in transition and transfer is therefore important.

Objective: To develop, test and evaluate a mHealth app for young people with diabetes type 1 transferring from pediatric to adult care.

Method: Development: We developed an app-prototype based on rapid prototyping and participatory design. 13 young people aged 16–22 years old with type 1 diabetes, seven parents and seven health care professionals participated in workshops. Test: 25 young people with type 1 diabetes, seven parents and 21 health care professionals tested the app for 2 months. Evaluation: We did six individual interviews. 53 completed an electronic questionnaire.

Results: Based on user driven innovation, we developed a mHealth app with information about: being young with diabetes; diabetes in general; the new adult department; others experiences with diabetes. Evaluation showed that 80% of the young people and 71% of parents used the app to get information about diabetes and being young with diabetes. 86% of the parents and 24% of the young people used the app to get information about their new adult department. The app gave some of the young people more knowledge of their own disease so they felt less dependent of their nurse and doctor.

Conclusion: mHelath apps are well received by young patients, parents and staff. Prototypes can be designed, tested and evaluated within a short period of time. Especially needs of information and others experiences emerged. Future research should focus on the possible role for apps to support chronically ill young people during transition in randomized controlled trials.