It’s official! The DESMOND programme can help you lose weight; give up smoking; get exercising and feel less depressed. And it lasts for at least 12 months. Which is good news if you have just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and live in one of the 69 local areas currently offering this award-winning programme.
Last month, the British Medical Journal published the results of the DESMOND study, the largest ever medical trial conducted on the effects of structured education provided at diagnosis for people with Type 2 diabetes. The results showed that 12 months on, those who attended the DESMOND programme in addition to receiving routine care from their general practitioner, lost more weight, took up exercise earlier, and were less depressed than those who had routine care alone. Oh, and less DESMOND participants were still smoking 12 months after attending the programme.
The study, funded by Diabetes UK, was conducted in 13 sites around England and Wales. In total, 17 primary care organisations and 207 general practices took part, with a team of 30 Educators trained to deliver DESMOND in the different sites. Patients were referred by their practice and were randomised either to attending a DESMOND course or receiving routine care in their practice. In total, 824 newly diagnosed patients joined the study, with over 90% of these providing follow-up data at 12 months.
Participants who attended a DESMOND course showed a greater weight loss as well as improvements in lifestyle factors such as smoking and physical activity. Attending the programme was associated with changes in illness beliefs, with the direction of change indicating greater understanding of diabetes. Another important result was the reduction in levels of depression in the intervention group.
Both DESMOND patients and routine care patients experienced an improvement in HbA1c levels 12 months on. This is not a surprising finding in newly diagnosed participants when such improvements can be expected to occur in the period immediately after diagnosis. To see if there are any differences in the longer term, a follow-up study is currently ongoing to investigate differences at 3 years.
One remarkable finding is how the change in beliefs about diabetes experienced by individuals attending a DESMOND programme, and their beliefs about the ability to self manage predicted some of the improvements found, e.g. weight. People who had attended the programme showed greater understanding of their diabetes as well as greater perception of its duration, time course and seriousness. There was a definite association found between the change in personal responsibility with change in body weight.
The full results of the trial are now available in the British Medical Journal, www.bmj.com
What the Patient says: Tim Taylor, one of the first people in the UK to attend a DESMOND programme as part of the study, shares
his belief of why DESMOND is good for you.
Read more about Tim’s story…
For many people, DESMOND may still only be a name - even if name that’s now familiar to most! But the members of the DESMOND team are hoping that next week people in the Glasgow area will be able to put one of seven faces to that name.
Members of the DESMOND Team joined several hundred NHS at ‘NHS Live’, a unique event to mark the achievements of the NHS past and present held at the prestigious Wembley stadium in North London.
The Health Service Journal Awards at the end of November celebrated UK healthcare at its best - including recognising those at the leading edge of healthcare training via a ‘Skills Development’ award sponsored by Skills for Health.