Using a continuous glucose monitor reduces the stress and anxiety that parents undergo when managing their child’s type 1 diagnosis, according to a new Australian study.
It was the first-ever study of its kind to look at the psychosocial effects that remote CGM use might have on parents.
“CGM with remote monitoring reduces the fear of hypoglycemia and improves other psychosocial metrics in parents of children with type 1 diabetes. Use of such systems has the potential to reduce the disease burden for those families,” the researchers state.
How was the Study Conducted?
Participants included 49 children with type 1 diabetes, aged 2–12 years, along with their parents, in the randomized crossover study.
They participated in two 3-month periods using conventional blood glucose monitoring (control) or the Dexcom G5 Mobile continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system with remote monitoring.
The primary outcome was a “parental fear of hypoglycemia score” which was assessed by a Hypoglycemia Fear Survey.
What were the findings?
Researchers found that scores were lower on the Parental Hypoglycemia Fear Survey while the child was using CGM with remote monitoring.
Further, they found that parental health-related quality of life and family functioning, stress, anxiety, and sleep measures also improved significantly after the intervention.
The results, however, found that there were no differences in the average A1C level of the patients after the remote monitoring versus control periods (both groups that an A1C of 7.8%)
“This could be attributed to the fact that there was no active effort to improve diabetes management in this study group since the purpose of this trial was to determine the efficacy of the CGM system to improve quality of life metrics,” the researchers state.
Source:
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The Use of Continuous Glucose Monitoring With Remote Monitoring Improves Psychosocial Measures in Parents of Children With Type 1 Diabetes: A Randomized Crossover Trial
Marie-Anne Burckhardt, Alison Roberts, Grant J. Smith, Mary B. Abraham, Elizabeth A. Davis andTimothy W. Jones