ACBRD had a strong presence at the 2024 Australasian Diabetes Congress in Perth
By Sarah Manallack, Dr Jo Jordan, Alison Robinson, Dr Uffe Søholm, Ralph Geerling, and Dr Eloise Litterbach
Last month seven members of the ACBRD team went to Perth to take part in the 2024 Australasian Diabetes Congress (ADC). The ADC is the Annual Scientific Meeting organised by the Australian Diabetes Educators Association (ADEA) and Australian Diabetes Society (ADS). The conference is a great opportunity to hear about the latest diabetes research from national and international experts.
ACBRD staff and students contributed to five oral presentations and three posters across the 3-day (21-23 August) event.
Day 1. Ralph Geerling gave two oral presentations during an ADEA session. He shared his work showing that willpower predicted greater emotional well-being but not diabetes distress. His second presentation shared results from his rapid review on behaviour change techniques (BCTs) to inform the redevelopment of Australia’s largest diabetes prevention program – Life!
He showed that there are several effective BCTs for targeting physical activity and healthy eating. These include goal setting, problem solving, action planning, self-monitoring, feedback, review, instruction, social support, education (health consequences) and prompts/cues. The presentation also showed how BCTs could be mapped to Life! program content to help shape improvements to the program.
On Day 2 Dr Jo Jordan spoke about the barriers and enablers to taking part in diabetes research for people with type 2 diabetes, living in Australian rural communities.
Her presentation showed that a lack of opportunities to take part in research, diabetes stigma and travel costs were key barriers. Enablers included collaborating with community leaders and local community networks, offering diabetes care as part of research and making the research accessible to all. Jo also presented these findings at an Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovations (ACADI) session at ADC.
During her presentation, Alison Robinson shared feedback on the developed of the Hypoglycaemia Prevention, Awareness of Symptoms, and Treatment (HypoPAST) intervention from the lived experience Steering Group.
She showed that HypoPAST should aim to be a program that is empowering, empathetic, and hopeful, and one that takes a holistic approach to hypos and diabetes. The Steering Committee also recommended that the program be relatable and easy to complete.
Dr Eloise Litterbach spoke about the development of a scale designed to measure stigma in gestational diabetes.
Her presentation summarised the experiences of stigma for women with gestational diabetes. This included where stigma comes from and what drives it (e.g. health system, media, community and family, stereotypes), what it looks like (e.g. not being offered choices during and about pregnancy care, self-stigma, feeling blamed and judged) and outcomes of stigma (e.g. lower levels of self-care, not wanting to tell people about having gestational diabetes, feeling sad and frustrated). She also shared factors that can protect women from such stigma (e.g. social support from others). These experiences informed a new tool to measure stigma in women with gestational diabetes and is ready for testing in the real world.
Sarah Manallack’s poster examined whether age and gender were associated with diabetes and weight stigma among adults with type 2 diabetes. The short answer is yes, they are! The study showed that women and younger participants reported greater stigma related to diabetes and to weight. This study examined data from our second Diabetes MILES-Australia (MILES-2) study.
Dr Uffe Søholm presented a poster looking at health professionals and their unmet needs for supporting adults with type 1 diabetes and fear of hypoglycaemia. This study was part of our HypoPAST trial. A key finding was that health professionals see a large unmet need for affordable and accessible interventions for people experiencing hypoglycaemia specific fear (e.g. effective, online self-help program).
Other highlights from the conference:
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- At the ACBRD’s #EndDiabetesStigma themed stand, we showcased our important work in this space. We were also excited to see many thoughtful and insightful conversations about diabetes stigma with researchers, community workers and clinicians who appreciate the impact of stigma and the importance of language, empathy and genuine care toward and about (people living with) diabetes.
- Prof Chantal Mathieu’s plenary on the new face of type 1 diabetes which showed the different stages of progression of type 1 diabetes as well as exciting new research on treatments to delay the onset of stage 3 type 1 diabetes.
- Symposium on progress for screening for pre-symptomatic type 1 diabetes in Australia chaired by Dr Kirstie Bell who is leading the Australian Type 1 Diabetes National Screening Pilot (University of Sydney).
- an ADEA Masterclass which featured expertise from Meaghan Read (Diabetes Victoria), Candice Hall (ATIC) and David Burren (bionicwookiee.com) on creating effective and meaningful research partnerships with the diabetes community. There was an emphasis on the importance and benefits of including people with diabetes in all steps of the research process.
- an ADEA Symposium showcasing how primary care teams can work effectively to support people living with diabetes. This included a case example of the team at PDC Health Hub in Perth, a centre which brings together diabetes educators, dietitians, exercise physiologists and podiatrists to provide effective multidisciplinary care for people with diabetes.
- An ADEA Masterclass asked attendees to reflect on their values, philosophies, beliefs and biases about behaviour change and how these may affect having difficult conversations with clients. Delegates then held impromptu mock clinical interviews with fellow delegates to trial practical strategies for tackling those tough conversations.
We look forward to next year’s congress in the Gold Coast, Queensland (20-22 August 2025).
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