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The right care matters for children with diabetes

It’s important to promote the right kind of information in society, especially for parents of children with diabetes, as they are primarily responsible for the health of their minor children. However, it’s also important to involve the child in making decisions that affect them.  
Anne Varonen, Inna Valto, Jenni Leppänen, Kia Pajunen 
Jaana Tilli

The most common form of diabetes in children is type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease. It means that the body attacks its own tissues, over which it has no control.  

In type 1 diabetes, the body can no longer produce insulin, which keeps blood sugar at the right level. Treatment of type 1 diabetes always requires insulin and treatment starts in hospital for children. The hospital provides guidance to the family on how to care for their child with diabetes. 

The treatment of diabetes in children affects the whole family and its very important that parents are involved from the beginning. After the hospital period, the child's diabetes is regularly monitored at the diabetes clinic, but the treatment is mainly carried out in the normal daily routine at home. The whole family benefits from a good balance of diabetes care by ensuring a healthy diet and adequate physical activity. It’s also worth noting that for example, in Finland, health professionals are obliged to report any neglect of care to child protection services. 

Cultural sensitivity is an important part of a public health nurse's work

As health professionals, it’s important for us to promote a culturally sensitive work approach in our client encounters and to be interested in people as individuals by considering their culture. Prejudices can affect our attitudes so that we do not see the person from behind the culture. All health care clients should have the opportunity to express themselves in their own language and to be heard considering their cultural backgrounds.  

When the subject is unfamiliar, it’s important that the listener can ask questions in his or her own language and receive an understandable answer. In order to provide the right care for diabetes, it’s important to ensure that the parents and the child themself have understood the information that they have received. If necessary, the services of an interpreter should always be used, as well as images and gestures, for example. A culturally sensitive approach requires patience and flexibility. Many difficult situations can be overcome if you remain open to new things and treat the client with respect. 

An event on children’s’ diabetes was felt to be necessary

As part of Moniheli’s Terkku project, we organised a health event on type 1 diabetes in children in cooperation with the Central Organisation of Russian Speakers in Finland. The aim of the project is to develop culturally sensitive models of outreach work. We designed the event based on the partner's wishes and we were able to meet the audience face-to-face at the organisation's premises. At the health event, the public also had the opportunity to network with each other and to gain new information from both those presenting at the health event and from each other. Face-to-face encounters are also often perceived as more confidence-building than, for example, lecturing at a remote event. Even eye contact creates a feeling of being heard.

The event was attended by people both on-site and remotely via a Facebook stream. According to the feedback, the event was perceived as useful and interesting. Participants gave especially positive feedback on the discussion that took place during the event. They also suggested a development idea that at the beginning of the event, the students could have asked the participants how familiar they were with the topic of diabetes. We can therefore conclude that the event increased Russian speakers’ knowledge of children’s diabetes.  

The authors are final year public health nursing students at the Diakonia University of Applied Sciences. The blog post and the health event are part of a development task we carried out in the Terkku project. 

Verkkosivustomme käyttää evästeitä käyttökokemuksen parantamiseksi.

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