Book Review: Diabetes and wellbeing: Managing psychological and emotional challenges of diabetes types 1 and 2

Book Review in peer revewed Journal of Diabetes Nursing about the psychological and emotional challenges associated with living with Diabetes. The book is recommended to both health professionals and people with Diabetes.

Living with suicidal thoughts

The dominant understandings of suicide have privileged the professional observations of health professionals and sociologists over the lived experiences of persons who have reported feeling suicidal. The current study explores what it is like to feel suicidal by examining comments posted voluntarily in an online forum. Adopting an inductive thematic analysis, a number of themes were uncovered which shed light on the following questions: Who has suicidal thoughts? What triggers suicidal thoughts? What is it like to feel suicidal? Also drawn from the data, was information relating to the types of treatments that people received, as well as ongoing survival strategies that people have relied on. The fi ndings indicated people with suicidal thoughts form a heterogeneous group with mixed opinions about the causes of suicidal thoughts. The findings also highlighted a variety of experiences, descriptions and means for survival highlighting the depth of insight that those with fi rst-hand experience have about suicidal thoughts, highlighting also the deep gap in knowledge and understanding in the existing literature about suicide and suicidal ideation. The recommendations for future direction in practice and research include, listening to, and valuing more, the voices and perspectives of suicidal people themselves.

Utilisation of general practitioner services and achievement of guideline targets by people with diabetes who joined a peer-support program in Victoria, Australia

This paper describes the use of general practitioner (GP) services and achievement of guideline targets by 285 adults with type 2 diabetes in urban and regional areas of Victoria, Australia. Anthropometric and biomedical measures and responses to a self-administered questionnaire were collected. Findings indicate that almost all participants had visited a GP and had had their hypoglycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) measured in the past 6 months; less than one-third had visited a practice nurse. Fifty per cent achieved a HbA1c target of ≤7.0%; 40%, a total cholesterol ≤4.00 mmol/L; 39%, BP Systolic ≤130 mmHg; 51%, BP Diastolic ≤80 mmHg; 15%, body mass index ≤25 kg/m2; and 34% reported a moderately intense level of physical activity, that is, ≥30 min, 5 days a week. However, 39% of individuals achieved at least two targets and 18% achieved at least three of these guideline targets. Regional participants were more likely to report having a management plan and having visited a practice nurse, but they were less likely to have visited other health professionals. Therefore, a more sustained effort that also includes collaborative care approaches is required to improve the management of diabetes in Australia.

A longitudinal study of quality of life among people living with a progressive neurological illness

This study investigated predictors of quality of life (QOL) of people with progressive neurological illnesses. Participants were 257 people with motor neurone disease (MND), Huntington’s disease (HD), multiple sclerosis (MS), or Parkinson’s. Participants completed questionnaires on two occasions, 12 months apart. There was an increase in severity of symptoms for people withMND, negative mood for people with HD and Parkinson’s, and social support satisfaction for people with MS. Regression analyses were conducted to determine predictors of QOL for each group. Predictor variables were length of illness, symptoms (physical symptoms, control over body, cognitive symptoms and psychological symptoms), mood, relationship satisfaction and social support. Predictors of QOL were severity of symptoms for people withMND, HD and MS; negative mood for people withMNDand Parkinson’s; and social support satisfaction for people with MS. These results demonstrate the importance of illness severity and mood in predicting QOL, but also indicate differences between illness groups. The limited role played by social support and relationship is a surprising finding from the current study.