PRIORITY Trial
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development and feasibility of a parent intervention to prevent disordered eating in children and young people with type 1 diabetes
IRAS ID
288159
Contact name
Christina Jones
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Surrey
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Research Summary:
Disordered eating affects a third of children and young people (CYP) with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Current interventions focus on improving distress and long-term glycaemic control, rather than unhealthy eating and dieting practices. Evidence from clinical eating disorders shows that involving parents is essential to CYP’s recovery. Parents’ say group interventions are a good source of support whilst improving their confidence and knowledge in managing their child’s eating disorder. We want to know if developing an intervention for parents of CYP with T1D will help prevent disordered eating in the future.This research aims to develop, with support from parents and CYP with T1D, a parenting intervention to prevent disordered eating in CYP with T1D. Before starting a large national study to decide if the intervention is helpful, we need to run a feasibility study to ensure parents of CYP with T1D are interested and want to take part, and that the intervention and questionnaires are acceptable. This feasibility study will help us find out if we can run a larger project, how many parents we need to recruit and how long the larger project will last. We have designed this feasibility study with parents of children with T1D.
Summary of Results:
The aim of this research was to develop, with support from parents and children and young people (CYP) with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), an intervention for parents to prevent disordered eating in CYP with T1D. We believe that this could be helpful in preventing disordered eating in CYP with T1D but before starting a large national study to decide if the intervention is helpful, we need to run a feasibility study (a small test version of the full study). We needed to do a feasibility study to make sure we know that parents of CYP with T1D are interested and want to take part in such a study. We also wanted to make sure that the intervention (including a group workshop and website with downloadable information) and questionnaires we use as part of the research are acceptable to parents and CYP with T1D. This smaller test version has helped us find out if we can run this as a larger project, how many parents we will need to recruit and how long the larger project will take to run.
We have now completed all aspects of the project which included designing the content of the intervention with help from families of CYP with T1D and healthcare professionals including nurses, psychologists, dietitians and paediatricians working in diabetes, as well as reviewing the literature around eating disorders and T1D. With the help from our experts, we have designed an intervention manual, presentation materials which are helpful for the researchers who are running the workshops, and a website for parents to be able to use in between and after the workshops. The website also includes blogs written by and for families who may be struggling and materials which can be downloaded and worked through with their CYP.
The second stage of the project involved finding out if we can recruit parents to the project, how long it takes to recruit and what parents think of the intervention (e.g., how acceptable they find it). We were able to recruit and randomise 89 families (31% of those invited) with a child aged 11-14 years with T1D. Of these families, 44 received access to the intervention with 36 of these attending at least one workshop, and 35 attending both workshop sessions. Just under two thirds of parents completed the questionnaires again at 1 and 3-month follow up. Encouraging results were seen in terms of reductions in diabetes eating problems and problem areas in diabetes, as well as improvements in parent wellbeing and children's general eating behaviours. Parents found most aspects of the intervention beneficial, well-organised, non-distressing, and met their expectations but some reported concerns about their child answering questions on diabetes eating problem behaviours.REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/WM/0242
Date of REC Opinion
5 Oct 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion