Chatbot for young people with type 1 diabetes mellitus
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The development of a chatbot to support successful transition to adult care of young people with type 1 diabetes mellitus
IRAS ID
292053
Contact name
Paul Dimitri
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Our team of doctors, nurses, young people (YP), parents/guardians, researchers, and technologists plan to create a new way of helping YP with type 1 diabetes to become confident at self-managing their diabetes when they move (‘transition’) from children’s to adult healthcare. To do this, we will develop a YP friendly diabetes chatbot (software for online chat), with avatars and linked videos.
29,000 children and YP in the UK live with diabetes. YP with diabetes transition to adult healthcare when they are 16-19 years old. In adult healthcare, YP are expected to self-manage their diabetes and appointments without being reminded.
Yet, many teams do not have the time to help YP in the way that is best for them. Many YP are therefore not ready for transition when the time comes, which can make them poorly. Chatbots can help people become confident at self-management.
In this project, we will first ask YP aged 11-25 years with diabetes to take part in a focus group, interview, or workshop to help us develop the chatbot and extra materials. We will also ask health professionals to take part in a focus group.
Once the chatbot is ready, we will ask 40 YP aged 11-25 years with diabetes to use the chatbot on a mobile phone or DigiBete website (https://www.digibete.org/) for 6 weeks. We will ask them to fill in online questionnaires before, during, and after the 6-week trial. We will also ask them to take part in an interview after the trial to tell us what they thought about using the chatbot.
The results will tell us if using the chatbot helps YP feel better about self-management, and whether we should test it with even more YP before making it available to all YP with diabetes.
REC name
East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC 1
REC reference
21/ES/0056
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jun 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion