Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Apr 15, 2015; 6(3): 371-379
Published online Apr 15, 2015. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v6.i3.371
Telehealth interventions to reduce management complications in type 1 diabetes: A review
Amanda M Balkhi, Adam M Reid, Sarah C Westen, Brian Olsen, David M Janicke, Gary R Geffken
Amanda M Balkhi, Adam M Reid, Sarah C Westen, David M Janicke, Gary R Geffken, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States
Amanda M Balkhi, Adam M Reid, Brian Olsen, Gary R Geffken, Division of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States
Gary R Geffken, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States
Author contributions: All the authors equally contributed to this work.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Amanda M Balkhi, MS, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165, 1600 S Archer Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611, United States. amanda.m.roberts@phhp.ufl.edu
Telephone: +1-352-2658873 Fax: +1-352-3766270
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 30, 2014
First decision: November 27, 2014
Revised: December 20, 2014
Accepted: January 18, 2015
Article in press: January 20, 2015
Published online: April 15, 2015
Processing time: 233 Days and 14.7 Hours
Abstract

Type 1 diabetes is a chronic illness with a high burden of care. While effective interventions and recommendations for diabetes care exist, the intensive nature of diabetes management makes compliance difficult. This is especially true in children and adolescents as they have unique psychosocial and diabetes needs. Despite the development of effective in-person interventions targeting improving self-management and ameliorating psychosocial difficulties there are still a number of barriers to implementing these interventions, namely time, cost, and access. Telehealth interventions allow for the dissemination of these interventions to a broader audience. Self-management and psychosocial telehealth interventions are reviewed with a special emphasis on mobile phone and internet based technology use. While efficacy has been demonstrated in a number of telehealth interventions with improved cost effectiveness over in-person interventions, many challenges remain including high participant attrition and difficulties with receiving reimbursement for services rendered. These and other challenges are discussed with recommendations for researchers and telehealth providers provided.

Keywords: Telehealth; Disease management; E-health interventions; Type 1 diabetes management; Type 1 diabetes

Core tip: Type 1 diabetes is a chronic illness with a high burden of care. Despite the development of effective in-person interventions, telehealth interventions are necessary to improve access to and engagement in interventions to improve diabetes management. Mobile phone and internet based interventions appear to have the most potential to enact change. Challenges and recommendations for these telehealth interventions are provided.