Interactive Spaced Education to Optimize Diabetes Care

Boston VA Research Institute, Inc.

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diabetes

Treatments: Behavioral: SE Game on American History; Behavioral: SE Game on DSME

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT02082704

AHRQ 1R01HS019708-01A1

Details and patient eligibility

About

Investigators are conducting a randomized controlled trial to determine whether an online team-based spaced education (SE) game can improve HbA1c levels among these patients with diabetes (primary aim). Secondary aims include determining the impact of the game on patients' pill possession ratio (PPR) of oral DM meds and their microalbumin/creatinine (M/C) ratio, ACE PPR, and ARB PPR.

Full description

Participants will be randomized to one of two cohorts: (1) the intervention cohort will participate in an online team-based game on diabetes self-management education (DSME) and will receive a paper documents on American history, and (2) the 'attention control' cohort will participate in an online team-based game on American history and will receive a paper documents on DSME. Each game would consist of 2 questions per week x 25 weeks = 50 questions total per arm. The questions are delivered via email by the Qstream platform to the participants. Upon clicking on a hyperlink in the email, participants select an answer that is downloaded to a server. They are then provided with the answer to and explanation of the question, along with additional educational materials. Using an adaptive methodology, the spacing and content of the game material will be individualized for each clinician based on their performance. Home-based testing of HbA1c and M/C ratio will be conducted by patients at enrollment, 6 months and 12 months. If successful, this SE game will improve diabetes management among VA patients and improve patient outcomes. Given the growing use of email and the Internet by patients, SE games could be easily expanded to a broad audience of VA patients with varying health problems across the country. With content tailored to meet specific needs, SE games can be utilized as tools to improve patients' clinical outcomes by bolstering their health management behaviors.

Enrollment: 456 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients in the northeastern Veterans Affairs hospital system who are taking oral diabetes medications, have a PPR<80%, and have a HbA1c >7.5.

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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456 participants in 2 patient groups

SE Game on DSME

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention cohort will participate in an online team-based game on diabetes self-management education (DSME) and will receive a paper documents on American history,

Treatment:

Behavioral: SE Game on DSME

SE Game on American History

Active Comparator group

Description:

The 'attention control' cohort will participate in an online team-based game on American history and will receive a paper documents on DSME.

Treatment:

Behavioral: SE Game on American History