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Research In Diabetes

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J

j.philbin

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Relationship to Diabetes
Hello 🙂, I am Currently completing a Masters degree in Health Psychology. I am particularly interested in researching diabetes as my younger sister has type 1 and has been struggling for many years now. For my main research project in my degree I have chosen to research diabetes. I would be grateful if anyone could spare some time to complete my questionnaire as I need as many participants as possible.

Here is a little more information and the link below.

If you have diabetes and currently have no known complications associated with diabetes I would like to invite you to take part in my research study. Before you decide you need to understand why the research is being done and what it involves. Please take your time reading through this sheet and ask any questions if you need more information or feel something is unclear.
What is the purpose of the study?

I am investigating whether people who have diabetes have full knowledge of the risks of diabetes related illnesses and whether they perceive diabetes as a serious illness to try and reduce their risk of developing diabetes related illnesses. This is to determine whether an intervention may be best placed at making people more aware of how serious diabetes is, or whether an intervention should be placed at helping people learn more about the other risks or illnesses that are associated with diabetes.
You have been asked to take part in this study because your views about diabetes are important to try and determine where help for other diabetics may be best placed.

Do I have to take part?

No. Taking part is completely voluntary. However, the questionnaires are completely anonymous so your scores cannot be excluded from the study once you have submitted your questionnaire. Please take time to think about taking part as you cannot be withdraw after the questionnaire is submitted.

What will happen to me if I take part?

There are 3 questionnaires to be filled in from this study. The first is a diabetes quality of life scale. The second is an illness perception questionnaire. The third questionnaire is a knowledge test which is designed to determine whether some risks are more known about than others. In the knowledge test please do not research the answer as I need the most honest answers to try and research this area. It will take approximately 20-30 minutes of your time. Please ask me any questions if you need more explanation of the research.

As this research asks you to think about diabetes and the risks related to diabetes, it is understandable that it may bring some distress that is unintended. Please take time to think about taking part in the study if it may upset you.
Should you have a problem with the study, please contact me by Private Message and I will do my best to help you.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE PART PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK -
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XdZ5aSHGM2wg3tUfzADQhCn4Nh5Sgvbv0SQAz6N6GsI/viewform?usp=send_form
 
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Diabetes isn't an illness it's a condition.
 
Sounds like an interesting bit of research and I wish you good luck with it.

I do have one concern though. If you're looking for subjects on fora like this one your data may end up a bit skewed because the folk in here are pretty well informed thanks to our resident experts and don't really reflect the true picture when it comes to diabetes education and support. From the experiences of our membership it's clear to us that education and support 'out there in the real world' is pretty spotty whatever form of diabetes you have. In here and other like places, we educate each other and with time, can become experts in our own right. Are you considering approach other places, such as the local diabetic clinic, for subjects as well?

One more thing, we so rarely hear back from people once the research is done. Would you consider letting know what the outcome is for you?
 
Dunnit.🙂 Wasn't asked about meter testing among other surprises.
 
Also, those of us who don't believe in God or have children might find some of the underlying assumptions in the questions a bit jarring.
 
Yes Deus, I said I was VERY satisfied with my children! because of course - as you will know automatically without me telling you - if I had had any, they would be absolutely PERFECT in every way!

That was a daft list of things - have you ever suffered pain, sore throat, headaches, nausea, upset stomach etc - well of course I have - in over 40 years one is bound to have all sorts of minor illnesses, isn't one?

None of them were due to my diabetes though.

I also have suffered from breathlessness, but that has 100% to do with having smoked since I was a teenager and 0% to do with D.

I also notice lack of strength - I've always been utterly feeble (never developed muscles, didn't have to weight-lift toddlers like a lot of women do when they are younger) so now I'm 64 it's hardly surprising I'm even feebler, is it?

LOL
 
Thank you for your comments I am very grateful for your replies. Alison, as my degree is a year long we aren't able to contact local diabetes clinics as the NHS has it's own ethics committee which could take longer than a year to be completed so we was advised against it. I would have liked to as the study will have the limitation that you have mentioned and this will be discussed in my research project as we have to explain how well the findings can be generalised. I am going to contact local support groups and ask if I am able to attend to talk about my research and try to recruit more participants that way as I do need as many as possible. I can post my findings on this thread once I have handed in my project in July. Also I will be happy to send you my completed project once it has been marked if you would like to see a copy then let me know and I will email it over. 🙂

Pumper Sue, I am sorry if I have offended or upset you. In my classes we learn about all types of chronic illnesses which diabetes is listed and so we tend to use both terms of illness and condition as our main focus is on the idea of it being chronic or lifelong. I will edit the post as I do agree I should have written a condition.

DeusXM, these will also be mentioned in my discussion that the questionnaires are not 100% suited. As I am only a student I am unable to create my own questionnaires as I would need to validate them. The questionnaires used are validated measures and the questionnaire you are referring to is a general illness and condition questionnaire so it is not directly aimed at people with diabetes but can be used. I will mention in my discussion that a diabetes specific questionnaire should be created to research this area as it would gain more reliable results. Anyone that would like to take part are able to ignore these questions if they wish to.

When qualified I would like to continue research in this area as I am very interested and would like to try and make a difference. I am very grateful for your comments and I will discuss limitations and issues with this research in my project as that's what allows for improvement into research.
 
Please could you ask anyone you know with diabetes to take part in my study if they have time as I need a lot of participants! Thank you 🙂
 
Done it. I skipped the questions with no relevance to me, ie the god stuff. Good luck!🙂
 
May I ask, how 'iron-clad' is the requirement for "no known complications of diabetes"?

I have a certain level of peripheral neuropathy, which is a complication, but doesn't cause me much of a problem other than a level of irritation that I have lost some feeling (my toes feel as if they are in cotton wool all the time and my fingers are not as sensitive as they used to be .... but strangely they can be very sensitive on certain materials).

Anyway, I have held off filling in the questions because of that requirement.

Andy 🙂
 
Thank you very much really appreciate it 🙂

Andy, my research is based on determining whether people perceive themselves at risk of developing a complication. I have requested that people without known complications because it may be likely that people with a complication may perceive themselves as "at risk" whereas someone without complications could view themselves as either at risk or not. Therefore a persons view of their risk may have changed once complication has been diagnosed.I have to recognise that this may be the case and normally in professional research a comparison would be made between a group of people with complications and a group without complications to see if there is any variation in views of risk between the groups. My supervisor had to sort of restrict my area to research because I wanted to research so much but my report is only 12,000 word limit and so I had to try and research one area and try and limit the number of issues I have. I am aiming to determine whether an intervention may be best placed at increasing knowledge of complications or increasing a persons perception of their risk.

I am too keen to research this area you see but in my report when we recommend future research I will be recommending to look at differences between groups of those who have complications an those who don't.
 
j.philbin said:
Thank you very much really appreciate it 🙂

Andy, my research is based on determining whether people perceive themselves at risk of developing a complication.
Click to expand...

Considering as everyone from day one of diagnoses has it drummed into them that their limbs will fall of or they will go blind or have kidney failure then it's rather obvious everyone to a certain extent lives with the fear.
Even though I have no complications even after 49 years on insulin, I still carry that fear.
 
Your opinion is valuable to the study! This is what I am hoping is the case as it would suggest that resources should not be out into this. But my idea was based on my sister. She currently believes she is not at any risk and she goes around not doing her insulin or eating right and does not realise how much danger she is putting herself at. So I chose to research journal articles into this and this is the case in some people. The study is trying to determine whether there are people who perceive themselves as not at risk and if that's the case then is it because they don't have knowledge of the complications? (Which is why my study has a knowledge test) or is it because they don't perceive themselves as having a condition to begin with. It could be neither but that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of. I know everyone is different in how they deal with conditions but take my sister for example, she's not alone in how she deals with diabetes and for the people who are like this the health service needs to provide an intervention as they are putting themselves at risk.

Your opinion and experience is valuable to my research.
 
Thank you Hobie 🙂 Yes you're right as at the moment I only have a quarter of the number of participants I need.
 
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