Effects of a brief computer-assisted diabetes self-management intervention on dietary, biological and quality-of-life outcomes.

Objective: There is a need for practical, efficient and broad-reaching diabetes self-management interventions that can produce changes in lifestyle behaviours such as healthy eating and weight loss. The objective of this study was to evaluate such a computer-assisted intervention.

Methods: Type 2 diabetes primary care patients (n=335) from fee-for-service and health maintenance organization settings were randomized to social cognitive theory-based tailored self-management (TSM) or computer-aided enhanced usual care (UC).

Robustness of a computer-assisted diabetes self-management intervention across patient characteristics, healthcare settings, and intervention staff.

Background: A major problem in the dissemination of most interventions found to be efficacious is that they are of limited or unknown generalizability.

Objective: To document the "robustness," or external validity, of a computer-assisted diabetes self-management program across different patient characteristics, healthcare settings (mixed payer vs health maintenance organization), intervention staff, and outcomes.

Study Design: A randomized controlled trial evaluating a computer-assisted behavior change program for adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (n = 217) vs a computerized health risk assessment.