Diabetes distress—it’s the “hot topic” that’s here to stay. Diabetes distress is thought to range from 36% in patients with Type 2 diabetes to 42% in those with Type 1 diabetes. With 2015 estimates of 30.3 million Americans with Type 2 diabetes, that is upwards of 11 million people who experience diabetes distress that impacts their ability to effectively self-manage their disease. There’s no denying the impact that building healthy coping skills can have on chronic disease management. As a diabetes educator, I’ve been aware of this concern in my patients with diabetes and have educated my team of dietitians to explore these concerns with patients. But we are not the only medical team members who impact the motivation and coping of our patients with diabetes. Often, although not always, the other providers that work with our patients may not be aware of the impact of diabetes distress or how the language that they use when working with their patients can negatively or positively impact the course of their disease and their engagement in their self-care.
Our role as educators can expand outside of our patients to our organizations and our referring providers, to show them the value and benefit of learning about diabetes distress, and how to instill hope, not fear, in our patients with diabetes.
The ways we are addressing diabetes distress at my primary care organization:
- Incorporating a validated diabetes distress screening tool into our diabetes education program assessment
- Adding a diabetes distress screening to our primary care provider visits (the Diabetes Distress Scale-2 question screening tool, with an expanded survey based on their answers)
- Planning a grand rounds presentation for our medical providers, collaboratively presented by the RD, CDE and psychologist, to share the importance of addressing emotional health in patients with diabetes, and how the language we use with our patients can impact their health outcomes.
- Presenting an in-service to our behavioral wellness team on diabetes distress and how to implement more diabetes and psycho-education into their sessions.
In what ways is your organization bringing emotional health into their work with patients with diabetes?
For further continuing education on this topic, consider viewing the Behavioral Diabetes Institute's new web-based CME program, Critical Psychosocial Issues in Diabetes, at https://cme.ucsd.edu/psychosocialdiabetes/.