Student Research
‘I need your help’: An investigation into the role of social support in the management of Type 2 Diabetes in Barbados
Category: Masters Public Health
Status: Data collection and analyses have been completed. Chapters for the final thesis are now being drafted.
Background: 18% of Barbadian population has diabetes mellitus, with Type 2 representing 90% of all diabetes cases in the island (Barbados government Information Service, 2015). Intrinsic to helping an individual with or those at risk of developing T2Dm is the need for behaviour change. As persons with diabetes attempt to effectively address and manage their illness however, they will require a stable and supportive social network. A supportive social network has been increasingly recognized as having an integral role in enhancing health outcomes for persons with a wide range of conditions (Bambina, 2007; belanger et al., 2016; Cattell, 2001; Sarasohn-Khan, 2008). In particular, researchers have argued that (1) it has buffer effect, in which instance persons are provided with copying resources which act as a buffer against psychosocial distress and (2) there is a direct correlation between social support and well-being (Bambina, 2007).
Objectives:
- To identify the facilitators of social support in the management of type 2 diabetes among participants of the BDRS.
- To identify the barriers of social support in the management of type 2 diabetes among participants of the BDRS.
- To compare the social support experience of successful and non successful participants of the BDRS.
- To assess the role of gender in the BDRS participants’ social support seeking behaviour.
- To examine the utility of social media as a form of social support in the management of participants’ type 2 diabetes
- To compare the role of social media to other types of social support in the management of type 2 diabetes among participants of the BDRS
Project Outline: This exploratory study is positioned in the qualitative framework of phenomenology. 25 participants along with 2 researchers of the Barbados Diabetes Reversal Study (BDRS) were purposively sampled. A total of 85 in depth semi structured interviews and 3 focus groups were conducted at critical points of the BDRS; baseline, 8 weeks, 6 months and 1 year follow-up. The participant's’ Whatsapp chat messages for the period October2015- January 2016 were analyzed using discourse analysis.
