2017 Volume 37 Issue 4 Pages 155-168
When it comes to the support for diabetic patients’ self-management, peer support has been recognized as useful and has been utilized mainly among patient groups. However, the time and place for such support is limited, meaning not all patients can always participate. Conversely, regular support using ICT has also been used, but it mainly deals with glycemic control between healthcare professionals and patients. In consideration of this state, we developed a social support system that enables diabetic patients to share information and their feelings, and applied it for one year. And then we analyzed the effect of the system based on the questionnaire survey on peer support function, behavior of diabetes self-management and the degree of burden from diabetes before and after using the system, involving the check of communicating situations among patients. The results showed that the peer support function was significantly higher one year after than it had been before the system was set up, and peer support among patients worked well in terms of sharing information and feelings, even in a remote condition.
