Any ideas for Research needed around DAFNE?

As the chairman of the DAFNE Graduate Group (DGG) I have been asked by the DAFNE Executive to reach out to users for any suggestions for research topics around DAFNE which would be of interest to users of the course.

Suggestions for research topics can be added to this thread which will hopefully provoke discussion with other DAFNE users. Alternatively, you can send your suggestions to me by e-mail at [email protected].

All suggestions will be passed to the DAFNE research team for consideration. I will report back later in the year on which suggestions have been adopted.

Many thanks.

I've received feedback from a number of people, but would welcome more. Any suggestions on ways of improving the DAFNE course, or into areas where research could help identify why things don't work as well as expected or documented in the course, would be appreciated. Many thanks.

Hi Peter,

I have read lots about anaerobic exercise causing rising sugar levels and about glucose being created from protein intake. These things surprised me and i'm not sure to what extent they are now incorporated into DAFNE course material

Kind regards

John

On a more basic level, it would be interesting to know whether "follow up" support after DAFNE courses has a beneficial effect in sustaining both any improvements for graduates arising from the course, and sustaining the use of DAFNE techniques.

My hypothesis is that with structured and longer-term follow-up, more graduates would sustain their improvements and fewer would "lapse".

Given the pressures (mainly funding I would guess) on services, I am not aware of DAFNE programmes which provide much more than one or two follow-up sessions for courses. Evidence showing the longer-term benefits of on-going DAFNE support could provide a basis for arguing for additional funding (and of course, if the evidence doesn't support my hypothesis, at least we'll know!).

Stew

I'm with John on the role of protein in raising BGs. For myself, I find that protein eaten with large amounts of carbohydrates doesn't tend to have much influence on BGLs, but protein without any carbs sends my BGLs very high unless I take QA with it.

For myself, it is pretty much a straight swap - i.e. for 40g of carbohydrate, I'd take 2 units of QA, and for 40g protein, I'd again take 2 units of QA. The difference I find is that my BGLs stay within the target range following the protein, whereas they tend to go high after carb before dropping to the normal range 3-4 hours following the meal.

Has there been any research into the effects of 'monthly' hormone changes and/or the menopause?

Obviously would only effect half the population, but there's probably half of us that will never do anaerobic exercise too

Does the sensitivity to correction doses increase the higher the blood sugar level is............

So will a correction drop you by 2mmol at levels above 15mmol for example......

Thanks for the input. I'll be forwarding the ideas to the DAFNE research team in a couple of weeks, so still more time for any other suggestions.....

Re Stew B's comments, DUAG did some research at the end of 2012 both with patients on what they wanted on follow-up care, and with HCPs on what their services provided. The conclusions. which were fed back to the DAFNE Executive and Research teams for input into the current grant application, were as follows:

Two surveys were set up on Survey Monkey – one aimed at HCPs looking at what follow up they deliver and any changes; the second aimed at graduates asking what follow up they received and what they wanted. Both have now been closed with approximately 70 responses in each case.

Graduates
72% of the respondents said they definitely felt the need for support after DAFNE training. Another 24% said there may be a need for the training – a total of 96% saying they wanted follow up training. However there was a whole range of answers to questions on the format and frequency follow-up training should take. As a result it is difficult to provide a single conclusion on what users want.
For a question asking graduates if they would be interested in assisting there were over 30 positive responses where names and contact details were provided. These have been passed to the relevant Lead Educators via Central DAFNE.
Educators
72 replies were received from 75 active centres, however it could be that more than 1 person replied in some centres. In response to a question on whether their centre currently provides any additional Training or Support apart from the 12-week post-course training a range of responses was received. 59% gave regular full-day, half-day or evening sessions and 9% held special events as follow-up. 41% provided follow-up to graduates by a one-off telephone call, while 3 centres (4.5%) provided a regular follow-up call.
The main follow-up appears to be at the “Diabetic Clinic” with 68% providing follow-up there, although 76% also provided a central telephone number for graduates. Interestingly no centres indicated that they did not provide any follow-up training in addition to the mandated session.
The costs of follow-up were also split with 14 centres incurring no costs, 16 centres absorbing the costs into the DAFNE budget and 27 centres where the costs are covered by the DAFNE team members themselves. In the other centres the costs are met through a range of administrative measures and meter companies.
18 centres stated that they were planning changes to follow-up training with most either indicating that the changes were due to requests from DAFNE Graduates or due to a review of current operations by the local Educator team. For those not planning any changes the reasons given were that no demand had been identified, previous sessions had been poorly attended, there was no staff hire available or no funding available.

novorapidboi26 said:
Does the sensitivity to correction doses increase the higher the blood sugar level is............

So will a correction drop you by 2mmol at levels above 15mmol for example......

Hi there,

I did DAFNE around 2 years ago and it has changed the way I mannage my diabetes in a massive way. I did find that in the classroom environment it was a lot simpler to get your QA and CP intake almost perfect. It is a different story once you hit the real world again, it would be great if there was a online follow up support system that you could email for advice. This website isn't the best for a forum... I have the DAFNE App for my readings etc but it would be good to have something a bit more user friendly as a forum like a DAFNE Twitter or FB... Just for diabetes ☺️

Thanks