Parental Expectations in the Care of Their Children and Adolescents With Diabetes

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There is little research about what parents of children with diabetes want and need from their health-care providers as they negotiate life with diabetes. Sixty-three parents of children with type 1 diabetes were interviewed. Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and a content analysis of text data was conducted. Three themes emerged describing what they wanted in their relationships with diabetes providers: laying the foundation, providing clinical care, and engaging families as partners. Collectively, these data provide vivid insights into the parent's perspective regarding their needs from diabetes providers as well as their perceptions of interactions that were unhelpful or worse, hurtful or undermining.

Section snippets

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to develop a broad overview of what parents of children with type 1 diabetes said about their relationships with health-care providers. Specifically, we wanted to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of interactions that were perceived by parents as helpful and those that were viewed as unhelpful in supporting them and their children to live successfully with diabetes.

Study Design

This project involved a four-stage mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology consisting of focus groups, a survey, and in-depth interviews. In each stage of the study, a new level of insight and depth was added to the results of the previous stage to develop an understanding of parents' perspectives of living well with diabetes. Earlier stages of the study were reported previously (Ginsburg et al., 2005). This article presents the results of the fourth and final stage of the study, which

Results

Three primary themes emerged as parents described the characteristics of a relationship with their provider, which helped them to successfully negotiate the challenges of living with diabetes. The first theme, laying the foundation, illustrated provider qualities and characteristics of interactions that set the stage for a successful or ineffective alliance with the family. The second theme, providing clinical care, summarized the clinical systems and therapeutic interventions that parents

Discussion

Parents in this study offered insightful advice to providers in regards to the relationships and interactions they hope for with their child and themselves as they live with diabetes. The theme, laying the foundation, outlined provider qualities and characteristics of interactions that were core to a successful working relationship. The overall demeanor of the providers when they entered the room seemed to have a subtle but important impact on the parent's and child's initial engagement with

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