Your child has diabetes: hospital or home at diagnosis?

Abstract

Historically, children with diabetes have been hospitalized at diagnosis, but increasingly, newly diagnosed children are being cared for entirely at home. The management of this chronic condition usually involves the whole family, with children often taking responsibility for much of their own care. However, this article focuses specifically on the needs of parents, forming part of an extensive literature review informing a study exploring parents' experience of home management and coping over the first year with childhood diabetes. A search of the literature revealed a scarcity of evidence overall about hospitalization or home management from a parental perspective, and none in relation to childhood diabetes. This article provides a critical appraisal of the appropriateness of these two approaches to care for parents of children with newly diagnosed diabetes. First, a brief introduction to home management in childhood diabetes is followed by an examination of the small amount of research found about home management and hospitalization from the point of view of parents. Then, the possible benefits and disadvantages of both approaches are discussed and subsequently scrutinized in the context of childhood diabetes. Finally, preliminary conclusions are drawn and suggestions made for the direction of future research in this area.