Leveraging Technology to Address Diabetes Distress and Burnout

This project served as the capstone for my master's degree. People with diabetes experience condition-specific mental health phenomenona called distress and burnout. My goal was to determine how technology can be leveraged to support this community's unique mental health needs.

What is diabetes distress and burnout?

Diabetes distress refers to the emotional and psychological stress experienced by individuals living with diabetes. It includes feelings of frustration, anxiety, depression, and the overwhelming sense of managing a chronic condition, often leading to decreased motivation and self-care.

Diabetes burnout is a state in which individuals with diabetes become exhausted and overwhelmed by the continuous demands of managing their condition. It can lead to a temporary or prolonged neglect of diabetes self-care tasks, such as monitoring blood glucose levels, taking medications, or following dietary and lifestyle recommendations.

33% to 50% of people with diabetes experience distress, while 55% experience burnout much or all of the time.

Why I Chose This Project: Helping My Community

I have lived with Type 1 Diabetes for over 25 years. I have personally experienced distress and burnout, I want to help my community and use my skills in user research to help others find relief from the emotional burden of this disease.

I hope to close this gap with the research and design work I am doing.

Research Plan

My research plan was done with a generative and qualitative approach. I felt there was a unique opportunity to approach research from a community-based angle. I wanted to encompass elements of participatory design and community knowledge into the research. So much of diabetes research is quantitative in nature, our lives are consumed by data all the time in the form of glucose numbers, carbohydrates, and insulin calculations. I wanted to approach this problem space from a humanist approach and to learn from lived experiences, years of professional observation, and the day-to-day intimacy of disease management.

Open-Ended Interviews

I conducted a series of 60-90 minute open-ended virtual interviews with people with diabetes and mental health professionals who specialized in diabetes distress and burnout. The goals for interviewing were to characterize the user journey, identify tools and resources, and get personal perspectives on mental health and living with diabetes

Cultural Probe Kit

Cultural probe kits allow an intimate look into the day-to-day emotions of people with diabetes. This research activity was chosen to see how other people with diabetes navigated their emotions and disease management, as well, to see how individuals interacted with mindfulness-based activities offered in the kit

Each kit consisted of mindfulness-based activities: A guided prompt journal, a fidget spinner, a stress ball, a Lego crafting kit, a camera, and an emotion expressions pineapple. Each activity was accompanied with a post-activity reflection card with questions about different aspects of diabetes and mental health

Open-Ended Qualtrics Survey

An open-ended survey was deployed to explore a few targeted topics within diabetes distress and burnout: physician distress, community engagement, and life-long outlook. These topics were chosen because they stood out as potential areas that I felt I would be able to do design work with later on.

Research Insights & Design Requirements

Thematic Analysis

My exploratory research generated 15 interview hours, two completed cultural probe kits, and seven qualitative survey responses. A FigJam board was created to consolidate and evaluate all of the user research in one place.

Over 40 thematic codes, seven themes, and an initial set of design requirements were produced from this activity, with the goal of developing early product design concepts.

Design Requirements Report

A summary report of the thematic analysis and design requirements can be downloaded here.

Design Work

Concept Test on Minimum Viable Product Ideas

The concept test was the final user research activity for this project, the goal of the concept test was to make a final selection on a minimum viable product. The concept test was facilitated through the use of a close-ended Qualtrics survey

The three concepts demonstrated to potential users included a digital platform for peer to peer mentorship within the diabetes community, a mindfulness-based journal, and podcast series focusing on diabetes mental health.

Users were most interested in the product concept of a mindfulness-based journal.

Ongoing Project Work

At this time, I have started content writing and software development work to build a web-based mindfulness journal.