Background: Diabetes poses heavy economic and social burdens worldwide. Mobile apps show great potential for diabetes self-management education. However, there is limited evidence for the effectiveness of providing general diabetes education through mobile apps.
Objective: The aim of this study was to clarify the effectiveness of Lilly Connected Care Program (LCCP) app-based diabetes education for glycemic control.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study included patients with diabetes recruited to the LCCP platform from September 1, 2018, to May 31, 2019. Each patient was followed for 12 weeks. According to the number of diabetes education courses they had completed, the patients were divided into the following three groups: group A (0-4 courses), group B (5-29 courses), and group C (≥30 courses). The main outcomes were the change in blood glucose at the 12th week compared with baseline and the differences in blood glucose at the 12th week among the three groups. The associations of the number of diabetes education courses completed with the average blood glucose and frequency of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) at the 12th week were assessed by multivariate linear regression analyses controlling for other confounding covariates. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to assess factors influencing patients' engagement in the diabetes education courses.
Results: A total of 5011 participants were enrolled. Their mean fasting blood glucose (FBG) and postprandial blood glucose (PBG) were significantly lower at the 12th week than at baseline (FBG, 7.46 [standard deviation (SD) 1.95] vs 7.79 [SD 2.18] mmol/L, P<.001; PBG, 8.94 [SD 2.74] vs 9.53 [SD 2.81] mmol/L, P<.001). The groups that completed more diabetes education courses had lower FBG (group B, β=-0.14, 95% CI -0.26 to -0.03; group C, β=-0.29, 95% CI -0.41 to -0.16; P for trend <.001) and PBG (group B, β=-0.29, 95% CI -0.46 to -0.11; group C, β=-0.47, 95% CI -0.66 to -0.28; P for trend <.001) and a higher frequency of SMBG at the 12th week (group B, β=1.17, 95% CI 0.81-1.53; group C, β=4.21, 95% CI 3.81-4.62; P for trend <.001) when compared with the findings in group A. Age and education were related to patients' engagement in the diabetes education courses. Middle-aged patients (35-59 years old) and elderly patients (≥60 years old) completed more diabetes education courses (middle-aged group, β=2.22, P=.01; elderly group, β=2.42, P=.02) than young patients (18-34 years old).
Conclusions: LCCP app-based diabetes education is effective for glycemic control and SMBG behavior improvement in patients with type 2 diabetes receiving insulin therapy. Young patients' engagement in the education courses was relatively low. We need to conduct in-depth interviews with users to further improve the curriculum.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; diabetes self-management education; glycemic control; mobile app.
©Yiyu Zhang, Chaoyuan Liu, Shuoming Luo, Jin Huang, Xia Li, Zhiguang Zhou. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 06.03.2020.