Systematic literature review of the content areas in children’s and adolescents’ type 1 diabetes care guidance compared to HUS Children’s Hospital’s continuing education’s con-tent areas

Hundreds of Finnish children and adolescents are diagnosed every year with Type 1 diabetes, which is statistically the largest rating disease in the world. Over the last decades, the amount of diagnosed children and adolescents has increased fourfold. Diabetes is a severe illness, which needs daily controlled care and also the family’s commitment to the contemplation of the care and to the practical implementation. The cornerstones of the care are insulin therapy, glucose control and correct nutrition. The diabetic needs a convenient and high-quality care guidance from educated health professionals in order to manage with the illness at home. Therefore, it is necessary to actively train the health professionals who are working with diabetic patients to guarantee that the care guidance maintains the quality and fulfills the given current regulations. The Helsinki and Uusimaa’s Hospital District Children Hospital ward K2, organizes regularly Care and Guidance –Continuing Education of Diabetic Patients for healthcare providers. By this continuing education it is possible to train major amount of employees at the same time cost-effectively. The need for this education format arose when there was a significant threat of deficit in diabetes knowledge among children and adolescent diabetes care. This continuing education has shown remarkable positive effects to healthcare professionals and to the given care guidance.

The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis is to describe the content areas of children’s and adolescent’s type 1 diabetes’ care guidance and compare the results to the content areas of the Care and Guidance –Continuing Education of Diabetic Patients arranged by the HUS Children’s Hospital ward K2. This Bachelor’s thesis has been made in collaboration with HUS Children’s Hospital ward K2. The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to produce information about the comprehensiveness of the continuing education’s content areas. The results can be utilized in the continuing education program’s development if needed. Bachelor’s thesis is conducted as a systematic literature review. The tasks are: what are the care guidance content areas in children and adolescents type 1 diabetes and do the Children’s Hospital ward K2’s organized Care and Guidance –Continuing Education of Diabetic patients meet the results. The material was selected from different databases and by manual scanning. We selected 17 research materials which consist of dissertations, pro-gradu studies and research articles. The materials were analyzed by inductive content analysis.

According to the findings, the care guidance must include the following content areas: nutrition-related guidance, self-care guidance, the importance of exercise guidance, blood glucose balance guidance, the guidance of blood glucose balance disorders, the guidance of external factors that affects the blood glucose balance, guidance of working in exceptional situations, insulin therapy guidance, guidance of the use of therapeutic tools, taking into account the patient’s psychical state, taking into account the family’s psychical wellbeing, increasing the knowledge of diabetes, the care giver’s professional qualification, contemplation of the care guidance, care guidance based on recommendations, ensuring the learned comprehension, decent care guidance, the guidance of practical implementations, guidance of the family’s additional diseases’ awareness, the guidance of monitoring the additional diseases’, the commitment of the family to the care, the inclusion of the external factors into the care, guidance of the daily care, supporting on economic factors and hygiene related guidance.

In the future, knowing that the children’s and adolescents’ type 1 diabetes is increasing, it is necessary to develop the content areas to ensure the quality of the care. The continuous development of technology should also be taken into account.