A qualitative interview study of people living with well controlled Type 1 diabetes.

Objective: While many people with Type 1 diabetes find it difficult to achieve
recommended blood glucose levels, a minority do achieve good control. Our study was conceived by patient and public (PP) partners and sought to learn about experiences of people living with well controlled diabetes.

Design: A collaboration between academic health psychologists and five PP partners with experience of diabetes, who were trained to conduct and analyse semi-structured interviews. Fifteen adults with well-controlled Type 1 diabetes were interviewed about the history of their diabetes and their current self-management practices. Interviews were subjected to inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Eight sub-themes were arranged into two overarching themes, “facing up to diabetes” and “balance leads to freedom.” Participants described a process of acceptance and mastery of diabetes, and talked about how they gained a deeper understanding of bodily processes through trial and error.

Conclusion: Based on the experiences of people with well-controlled Type 1 diabetes, interventions for people with this condition should encourage acceptance of the diagnosis and increasing confidence to experiment with behaviours (trial and error) to encourage “mastery” of self-management. The research collaboration described here is an example of best practice for future researchers wanting to actively engage PP partners.