Title:Self-management of Diabetes in Children and Young Adults Using Technology and Smartphone Applications
Volume: 10
Issue: 5
Author(s): Siobhan Sheehy, Georgia Cohen and Katharine R. Owen
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Diabetes, self-management, smartphone applications, telemedicine.
Abstract: Treatment compliance and adherence are often a challenge in patients with type 1 diabetes, particularly for adolescent
and young adult patients. With the availability of the internet and smart phone applications (apps) there is a hope
that such technology could provide a means to encourage treatment adherence in this group of patients. This review focuses
on whether telemedicine and smartphone technology in diabetes can influence self-management in young people
with diabetes. A large number of smartphone apps are targeted at people with diabetes, but a limited number of welldesigned
evaluation studies have been performed. As our review shows, the evidence base for efficacy of most of these
applications is minimal and improvement in hard outcomes such as HbA1c and complication development is largely lacking.