Implementing a Child-Friendly Teaching Tool for Kids with New-onset Type 1 Diabetes

Background: Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is one of the most common chronic diseases in pediatric populations. It affects nearly 19,000 youth each year. This is a life-altering diagnosis with great consequences. American Diabetes Association guidelines recommend that the education for these patients should be "developmentally appropriate." In practice, however, developmentally appropriate tools are limited. Methods: A quality improvement project was created to help implement a developmentally appropriate teaching tool for children with new-onset T1D. Nurses completed a presurvey to assess areas of perceived deficits among young learners. The survey further ascertained the attitudes toward implementing a new teaching tool and appropriate age of inclusion for the education process. Following education sessions, nurses completed an additional survey to assess the tool's ability to improve the teaching of diabetic care. Results: Pre-intervention, 80% of nurses surveyed (n = 15) strongly support the idea of incorporating more child-friendly resources in the teaching process. Post-intervention, the study found that 100% of respondents found the teaching tool easy to implement and that it improved their ability to teach younger audiences. However, these results were limited by a small sample size. Conclusions: This project highlighted pediatric T1D as the area of focus. However, other areas of children's health could also benefit from more child-friendly resources. This project focused on the nurses' perspective of the child's learning. Follow-up studies may consider learning from the child's perspective and assigning the role of educational play to child-life specialists or medical assistants.