Mobile phone-based education and counseling to reduce stress among patients with diabetes mellitus attending a tertiary care hospital of India

Abstract

Background:Stress among diabetic patients is much more as compared to normal individuals. A delayed recognition of stress undoubtedly worsens the prognosis for survival for many diabetic patients. Hence, this study was planned to develop an intervention model for the reduction of stress among diabetic patients and to evaluate the developed intervention model in the proposed group.Methods:This study was conducted in endocrinology outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital. Starting at random, the patients were allocated to control group and test group. Controls were given printed educational materials. Test group were counseled with intense lifestyle education using both printed materials and computers; they were contacted by telephones by the investigator every 3 weeks for 3 months and SMS were sent every week containing some educational tips.Results:Mean age was 54 ± 11.5 years overall ranging from 30 years to 80 years. About two-third of participants were males with similar distribution in both the groups (intervention = 66%, control = 64%). Half (50%) of the participants lived in joint families, followed by nuclear families (40%). Most (83%) were married and with either graduate or above graduate education (n = 39%). No significant difference was observed in socio-demographic characteristics among both control and intervention groups (P > 0.05). The average stress scores were similar (18.9) at baseline for control and intervention arms. At 3-month follow-up, however, these scores reduced to 17.05 in the intervention arm while they increased to 20.7 in the control arm. At 3 months follow-up, higher proportion of stress reduction was seen in the intervention group.Conclusions:Intervention in the form of intensive lifestyle education and phone calls and SMS significantly decrease their stress score. Mobile-based education has great potential to improve their mental status and increase patient-provider communication, and to decrease stress.

Pathways Between Discrimination and Quality of Life in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

“…Current studies on stress reduction interventions in patients with diabetes show that there are noninvasive methods to significantly decrease stress, including educational sessions and cognitive-behavior therapy. [55][56][57] Furthermore, teaching mindfulness stress reduction in patients with severe cases of diabetes significantly reduced cardiovascular risk factors. 58 To our knowledge there is limited research on interventions focused on decreasing stress in relation to perceived discrimination.…”

Is India ready for mental health apps (MHApps)? A quantitative-qualitative exploration of caregivers’ perspective on smartphone-based solutions for managing severe mental illnesses in low resource settings

“…However, utilization of these digital resources in the field of health care in general and mental health care in particular are very low. Literature shows only a handful of projects that deliver mobile based services for health information [ 38 , 39 ], HIV [ 40 , 41 ], diabetes [ 42 ], tuberculosis [ 43 ], cardiovascular diseases [ 44 , 45 ] in India, and only two SMS services for mental health issues [ 46 , 47 ]. To the best of our knowledge, no research from India highlights the use of app based intervention for mental disorders.…”

Harnessing mHealth to improve the diabetes screening and diagnosis rate in rural Indian settings: a learning from health systems initiative

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