Effect of patient education through a social network in young patients with type 1 diabetes in a Sub-Saharan context.

Patient education is essential in management of type 1 diabetes (T1D).To evaluate the short-term impact of patient education through WhatsApp on the knowledge of the disease and glycemic control of adolescents and young adults living with T1D in a resource-limited setting.A double arm non-randomized clinical trial was carried out in two clinics for diabetes in Cameroon, over a period of 2 months. The intervention consisted in providing four sessions of patient education through WhatsApp to an intervention group compared to a control group with their classic follow-up. We evaluate their knowledge on diabetes, acute events, and glycemic control, before and after intervention.We recruited 54 patients of which 25 subjects and 29 controls. Median age was 19 (17-20) and 19 (17-21) years for the intervention and control group, respectively. There was a significant improvement of knowledge on diabetes in the intervention group from 13/20 to 16/20 (P < 0.01) after 2 months, compared to a slight decrease in control group (from 11.6/20 to 11.3/20 (P = 0.33). The mean proportion of acute complications decreased from 28% to 16% (P = 0.46) in the intervention group, and increased from 7% to 34%, P = 0.01 in the control group. There was no improvement in glycosylated hemoglobin level in both groups.Patient education through social network helped to improve knowledge on T1D and to reduce acute complications without an improvement of glycemic control after 2 months.