Family attitudes to different management regimens in diabetes mellitus

Conventional treatment of children with newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus in Sweden consists of about three weeks of hospital care. In a prospective, randomised study a new regimen involving early discharge to a training apartment with integrated biomedical and family psychotherapeutic treatment was compared with conventional treatment. Thirty‐eight children, with their parents' consent, were randomised to one or other regimen.

One week after discharge, family satisfaction, as measured by closedend questions regarding information (p<0.05), attention received and division of responsibility between parents and staff (p<0.05) and emotional response to the treatment (p<0.05) was significantly higher in the study group. Sevent‐eight per cent of the written comments were entirely positive in the study group compared to 42% of the answers of the control group.

The results of this study have implication for the initial delivery of care to children with newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus.