Supporting and Incentivizing Peer Leaders for an Internet-Based Private Peer Community for Youths With Type 1 Diabetes: Social Network and Directed Content Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Youths with type 1 diabetes (T1D) frequently experience stigma. Internet-based peer communities can mitigate this through social support but require leaders to catalyze exchange. Whether nurturing potential leaders translates into a central role has not been well studied. Another issue understudied in such communities is lurking, the viewing of exchanges without commenting or posting. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the centrality of the peer leaders we selected, trained, and incentivized within the Canadian Virtual Peer Network (VPN)-T1D. This is a private Facebook (Meta Platforms, Inc) group that we created for persons aged 14 to 24 years with T1D. We specifically sought to (1) compare a quantitative estimate of network centrality between peer leaders and regular members, (2) assess the proportions of network exchanges that were social support oriented, and (3) assess proportions of high engagement (posts, comments, reactions, and votes) and low engagement (lurking) exchanges. METHODS: We recruited peer leaders and members with T1D from prior study cohorts and clinics. We trained 10 leaders, provided them with a monthly stipend, and encouraged them to post on the private Facebook group we launched on June 21, 2017. We extracted all communications (posts, messages, reactions, polls, votes, and views) that occurred until March 20, 2020. We calculated each member's centrality (80% of higher engagement communications comprising posts, comments, and reactions plus 20% of members with whom they connected). We divided each member's centrality by the highest centrality to compute the relative centrality, and compared the mean values between leaders and members (linear regression). We calculated the proportions of communications that were posts, comments, reactions, and views without reaction. We performed content analysis with a social support framework (informational, emotional, esteem-related, network, and tangible support), applying a maximum of 3 codes per communication. RESULTS: VPN-T1D gained 212 regular members and 10 peer leaders over 33 months; of these 222 members, 26 (11.7%) exited. Peer leaders had 10-fold higher relative centrality than regular members (mean 0.53, SD 0.26 vs mean 0.04, SD 0.05; 0.49 difference; 95% CI 0.44-0.53). Overall, 91.4% (203/222) of the members connected at least once through posts, comments, or reactions. Among the 75,051 communications, there were 5109 (6.81%) posts, comments, and polls, 6233 (8.31%) reactions, and 63,709 (84.9%) views (lurking). Moreover, 54.9% (3430/6253) of codes applied were social support related, 66.4% (2277/3430) of which were informational (eg, insurance and travel preparation), and 20.4% (699/3430) of which were esteem related (eg, relieving blame). CONCLUSIONS: Designating, training, and incentivizing peer leaders may stimulate content exchange and creation. Social support was a key VPN-T1D deliverable. Although lurking accounted for a high proportion of the overall activity, even those demonstrating this type of passive participation likely derived benefits, given that the network exit rate was low. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.2196/18714.

Group education for adolescents with type 1 diabetes during transition from paediatric to adult care: study protocol for a multisite, randomised controlled, superiority trial (GET-IT-T1D).

INTRODUCTION: Transition from paediatric to adult care is challenging for adolescents and emerging adults (ages 18 to 30 years) with type 1 diabetes (T1D). This transition is characterised by a deterioration in glycaemic control (haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)), decreased clinical attendance, poor self-management and increased acute T1D-related complications. However, evidence to guide delivery of transition care is lacking. Given the effectiveness of group education in adult diabetes glycaemic control and improvements in qualitative measures in paediatric diabetes, group education is a potentially feasible and cost-effective alternative for the delivery of transition care. In emerging adults with T1D, we aim to assess the effectiveness of group education visits compared with usual care on HbA1c, T1D-related complications, psychosocial measures and cost-effectiveness after the transfer to adult care. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: In a multisite, assessor-blinded, randomised, two-arm, parallel-group, superiority trial, 212 adolescents with T1D (ages 17 years) are randomised to 12 months group education versus usual T1D care before transfer to adult care. Visits in the active arm consist of group education sessions followed by usual T1D care visits every 3 months. Primary outcome is change in HbA1c measured at 24 months. Secondary outcomes are delays in establishing adult diabetes care, T1D-related hospitalisations and emergency department visits, severe hypoglycaemia, stigma, self-efficacy, diabetes knowledge, transition readiness, diabetes distress, quality of life and cost-effectiveness at 12 and 24 months follow-up. Analysis will be by intention-to-treat. Change in HbA1c will be calculated and compared between arms using differences (95% CI), along with cost-effectiveness analysis. A similar approach will be conducted to examine between-arm differences in secondary outcomes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study was approved by McGill University Health Centre Research Ethics Board (GET-IT/MP-37-2019-4434, version 'Final 1.0 from November 2018). Study results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03703440.