Interprofessional Collaboration and the Community-Based Care and Management of Type 2 Diabetic Patients

A special issue of Diabetology (ISSN 2673-4540).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 4766

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Research department, College for Health Care Professions, Claudiana, Bolzano, Italy
Interests: diabetes; interprofessional collaboration; change; nutrition; physical activity; community care

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Guest Editor
Institute for Management and Economics in Health Care, UMIT—University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Eduard-Wallnoefer-Zentrum 1, A-6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria
Interests: health systems management; primary healthcare; behavioral sciences in health and healthcare; interprofessional collarboration; health promotion and prevention
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Type 2 diabetes is one of the most frequent chronic diseases worldwide. Its prevention and treatment comprise different parts and professions within the health care and social sector. However, in real life, a lot of data, episodes and studies suggest that interprofessional collaboration is rarely ever practiced.

Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) means two or more other health/social care professions and the patient(s) working together to achieve the goal to improve or maintain a person’s health. It can be differentiated from multi-professional work through the individualized interaction between the different professionals to better understand/integrate/empower the patient’s situation (needs, opportunities, challenges, etc.). Furthermore, it includes shared decision-making and being adaptive to a single situation of an individual with type 2 diabetes, such as his/her self-management capabilities, clinical parameters, medication adherence, disposition towards change, lifestyle, and other obstacles/challenges. Currently, diabetes care is often considered to be not patient-centered and individualized enough, as well as often focused on the ideal-type improvement of clinical parameters. There are good chances that IPC could improve this situation.

Reeves et al. (Reeves, Lewin, Espin, and Zwarenstein 2010; Reeves, Xyrichis, and Zwarenstein 2018) have proposed a contingency approach, which means that IPC can be practiced as 1) teamwork (closest form of collaboration), 2) coordination, 3) collaboration, or 4) networking. From the same authors’ perspective, it is important to know that IPC has relational, organizational, contextual, and processual factors that are influenced by and influence different levels (micro, meso, and macro). Within the last few years, there are moves towards a unified definition/concept of IPC, and mentioned in particular is the interPACT tool of Xyrichis et al. (Xyrichis, Reeves, and Zwarenstein 2018).

Interprofessional collaboration in community health care focusing on the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes is the scope of this Special Issue. Empirical papers (on IPC) on diabetes care, in particular focusing on outcome variables such as health behavior, behavior change, quality of interaction, and not mainly clinical parameters/results, are of special interest. Additionally, manuscripts that present models of care based on different intensities/forms of IPC would be very welcome. We especially encourage mixed methods studies to be submitted, but also quantitative or qualitative papers are appreciated

Dr. Heike Wieser
Prof. Dr. Harald Stummer
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • health care
  • social and community
  • interprofessional collaboration
  • prevention and treatment

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

7 pages, 486 KiB  
Article
Can Health Improvements from a Community-Based Exercise and Lifestyle Program for Older Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Be Maintained? A Follow up Study
by Morwenna Kirwan, Kylie Gwynne, Thomas Laing, Mellissa Hay, Noureen Chowdhury and Christine L. Chiu
Diabetology 2022, 3(2), 348-354; https://doi.org/10.3390/diabetology3020025 - 19 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3956
Abstract
Background: Older people consistently report a desire to remain at home. Beat It is a community-based exercise and lifestyle intervention that uses evidence-based strategies to assist older people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) to improve physical and functional fitness, which are crucial [...] Read more.
Background: Older people consistently report a desire to remain at home. Beat It is a community-based exercise and lifestyle intervention that uses evidence-based strategies to assist older people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) to improve physical and functional fitness, which are crucial to maintain independence. This follow up, real-world study assessed the efficacy of Beat It and whether older adults with T2DM were able to maintain improvements in physical activity, waist circumference and fitness one year post completion. Methods: We have previously reported methods and results of short-term outcomes of Beat It. This paper reports anthropometric measurements and physical fitness outcomes of Beat it at 12-months post program completion and compares them to validated standards of fitness required to retain physical independence. Results: Improvements that were observed post program were maintained at 12 months (n = 43). While the number of participants who met fitness standards increased post program, not all increases were maintained at 12 months. Conclusions: This study provides promising early evidence that an eight-week, twenty-hour community-based clinician-led exercise and lifestyle program can improve health outcomes in older adults with T2DM which were retained for at least a year after program completion. Full article
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