Nurse Practitioner is relevantly a new concept within the healthcare settings of the country and they fulfil an important role in the healthcare system by offering a holistic approach to patient care.
Sidra Medicine was the first hospital in Qatar to introduce the concept of Nurse Practitioners. With their advanced clinical training, Nurse Practitioners are authorised to diagnose illnesses, treat conditions, and provide evidence-based health education to their patients.
Nurse Practitioners specialise in a wide range of sub-speciality areas, each focusing on a specific condition, clinical focus, environment, or sub-population.
Judith Campbell is a Nurse Practitioner in Endocrinology at Sidra Medicine and her main focus is of a Diabetes Educator to deliver evidence based structured education to children, young people (CYP) & families with all forms of diabetes.
“Education is paramount to enable CYP & families to effectively self-manage their diabetes on a daily basis at home and at school. Providing developmentally appropriate education in both out-patient and in-patient settings for CYP & families who have recently been diagnosed or for CYP and families who require educational updates, due to changes in insulin therapy, diabetes medications or diabetes technology,” Judith told Doha Today.
The Diabetes Nurse Educator team at Sidra Medicine is part of the wider multi-disciplinary diabetes team of Administration Staff, Doctors, Managers, Dietitians, Nurses, Health Promoters and Psychologists who work to support CYP and families with their diabetes management. The whole team should always give evidenced based, consistent message to CYP and families at every clinic and telephone contact with CYP and families.
Appointments in the clinic can be on a one to one basis with any of the healthcare providers or in joint clinics with the Educator and Dietitian together. This helps to reduce the amount of time CYP and families have to spend in hospital and reduces disruption and time away from work and school.
Group education sessions are also arranged to deliver education on insulin pump and glucose sensor starts to three families together. This allows for CYP & families to learn in a social environment and has been evidenced to add a valuable element to health education and learning.
For management of diabetes among children and teens, Judith says that consultation should always start with finding out what the CYP and family feels is going well with their diabetes, moving on to what is most challenging and what they would like to do defiantly to overcome the challenges.
Talking about misconceptions, Judith said that most frequent misconception about food and Type 1 Diabetes is that people with diabetes should have a ‘special diet’ or a ‘diabetic diet’ This is untrue.
“CYP with Type 1 diabetes should eat a normal, healthy diet the same as the rest of the population, and ensure that they follow the advice about carbohydrate counting and giving insulin injections before eating food not afterwards,” she said.
“Portion size should also be the same as other CYP who do not have diabetes. There is no need for larger portions or extra snacking, it will make you put weight on and make your diabetes more difficult to manage,” she added.
Judith emphasised that moving from paediatric diabetes to adult care can cause worry and nervousness for some young people and research tells us that some young people fail to attend appointments in the adult centres after the move.
“To prevent this from happening, both adult and paediatric services must work together to develop a Transition Process to support young people and their families through the move,” she added.
Advice to families caring for a child with diabetes
