| Pre-course expectations | ||
| Greater flexibility in diet and lifestyle | “It’s no fun thinking the kids at school are having pudding and she can’t… At least this way she can have it if she wants.” (mother, f, 11) | |
| Education to review basics of diabetes | “...with diabetes it changes so much all the time. Like with children…growing up you’ve got to be prepared to get back | |
| management | to basics and start all over again.” (mother, male, 14) | |
| Education to learn new information | “We’ve done [dose adjustment] a couple of times when it’s special occasions, but we’re still not that happy...we’re not confident enough to do it all the time.” (mother, male, 13) | |
| Improved glycaemic control | “Anything to help me with my diabetes control ’cause I’m not good at it.” (male, 16) | |
| Improved ability to self-manage | “I’m going on holiday with the school and it will be a good idea to know what to do.” (female, 16) | |
| Pre-course worries or concerns | ||
| MDI therapy: some concern that the new insulin | “I’m obviously going to have to be much more aware about what packets actually mean and the blood count.” | |
| regimen would be difficult to manage | (mother, female, 12) | |
| MDI therapy: children sometimes worried about | “I didn’t really want to have more needles, but when I heard about having more of the things I like I thought I’ll try and | |
| having more injections | see how it goes.” (female, 12) | |
| Certain aspects of course design and delivery | “I thought a week off school is going to interfere with my school work.” (female, 16) | |
| including the need for time off school | ||
| Post-course positive experiences | ||
| Improved glycaemic control – children and parents | “My sugars have been a lot better. They were up and down before... I think it’s because I know how much for a | |
| reported being better able to predict blood | correction dose to bring me down. Before I’d guess.” (female, 12) | |
| glucose levels and to correct high levels | ||
| Improved knowledge and accuracy of | “When I look back to how we were doing it before I can’t believe that we managed to get his blood sugars under control | |
| carbohydrate counting/insulin dose adjustment | because it was so hit and miss.” (mother, male, 12) | |
| Greater flexibility in diet and lifestyle | “He had his first sweets in 9 years, so that was a really big thing, He’d been cheating beforehand and made himself poorly.” (mother, male, 12) | |
| Improved child management, adherence and | “My mum used to do a lot of looking after my stuff... but now I can do it myself because I know how to inject and stuff | |
| confidence to self-manage | and what I can eat…” (male, 13) | |
| Increased diabetes-related knowledge | “Going over the old stuff, you think you know it and then realise you don’t. You’ve lived with it that long that you just get complacent.” (mother, male, 13) | |
| Post-course negative experiences | ||
| Adjusting to the new regimen: younger children | “She’s fine with the extra injections. Like I say she’s not fantastic at maths and it’s like working out if a packet only has | |
| typically needed a lot of help from parents and | 100 grams it’s like, ‘What’s that if I have 60 grams?’…but I think she’ll get there in the end.” (mother, female, 11) | |
| often found it difficult to remember extra | ||
| injections | ||
| Parents lack of knowledge/teaching | “I think that is the only thing, that if he hadn’t grasped something in the day or he’d forgotten it and I’d got nothing.” (mother, female, 12) | |
| Initial difficulty stabilising glycaemic control | “I’m not particularly worried that we’re struggling with it. I think it’s juggling what we’ve not got quite right.” (mother, female, 12) | |
| Specific aspects of course design | “But it’s quite a big commitment. I just had too much on.” (mother, female, 13) |
MDI, multiple daily injections.