Strength in Numbers: an international consensus conference to develop a novel approach to care delivery for young adults with type 1 diabetes, the D1 Now Study

Abstract

Many young adults with type 1 diabetes struggle with the day-to-day management of their condition. They often find it difficult to find the time to attend their clinic appointments and to meet with their diabetes healthcare team. Young adults living with type 1 diabetes are not routinely involved in research that may help improve health services other than being invited to take part in studies as research participants. A 3-day international conference was held in Galway in June 2016 called “Strength In Numbers: Teaming up to improve the health of young adults with type 1 diabetes”. It aimed to bring together people from a broad variety of backgrounds with an interest in young adults with type 1 diabetes. Young people with type 1 diabetes came together with healthcare professionals, researchers, software developers and policy makers to come up with and agree on a new approach for engaging young adults with type 1 diabetes with their health services and to improve how they manage their diabetes.

The people involved in the conference aimed to reach agreement (consensus) on a fixed set of outcome measures called a core outcome set (COS) that the group would recommend future studies involving young adults with type 1 diabetes to use, to suggest a new approach (intervention) for providing health services to young adults with type 1 diabetes, and to come up with health technology ideas that could help deliver the new intervention. Over the 3 days, this diverse international group of people that included young adults living with type 1 diabetes, agreed on a COS, 3 key parts of a new intervention and 1 possible health technology idea that could help with how the overall intervention could be delivered.

Involving young adults living with type 1 diabetes in a 3-day conference along with other key groups is an effective method for coming up with a new approach to improve health services for young adults with type 1 diabetes and better support their self-management.