Begun in April, 2002, the HANDling Diabetes Project is a NIH-funded research study which seeks to define the barriers that keep parents and children from adhering to complicated medical regimens and to help parents manage the care of children with chronic illness.

Investigators Suzanne Bennett Johnson, Ph.D., and Alexandra Quittner, Ph.D., professors of clinical and health psychology, will work with 100 families having children under age 11 with diabetes.

During the four year study, researchers will document the reasons that keep parents from following the often complicated daily medical regimes required to manage the disease. These could include insufficient skills to carry out the treatment, lack of time management, inability to gain cooperation from the child and miscommunication between the parent and health care provider.

On average, compliance with these complicated medical regimes is less that 50%. The consequences for not properly following health care recommendations can be serious. These include a decline in the child's health and development, absences from school, increased stress among family members and higher health-care costs for the child's treatment.

The investigators will measure the impact of several interventions on the extent of the caretaker-physician agreement about the child's recommended treatment plan and the family's actual daily management of the child's diabetes.

It is hoped that by conducting interventions in families with younger children, the problems often seen in adolescents with diabetes will be minimized. By establishing desirable behavioral patterns sooner, children should be better able to manage their own diseases as they enter adulthood.

For more information on the HANDling Diabetes Project, call Project Coordinator Dawn Newman Carlson, Ph.D. at (352) 265-0680, ext. 46860.