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When Does Personalized Feedback Make A Difference? A Narrative Review of Recent Findings and Their Implications for Promoting Better Diabetes Self-Care

  • Psychosocial Aspects (KK Hood and S Jaser, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Providing behavioral, biomarker, or disease risk feedback to patients is a key component of most behavioral interventions in diabetes, but it remains unclear what is necessary for such feedback to be truly engaging and effective. We sought to identify how personalized health-related feedback is most effectively designed and delivered, and how feedback may be tailored to meet the needs of individual patients with diabetes. To do so, we systematically reviewed recent findings concerning the effectiveness of feedback in eight health-related areas, including several specific to diabetes care (blood glucose monitoring and HbA1c) and others which touch on broader care dimensions (blood pressure, cholesterol, dietary intake, pedometer usage, self-weighing, and medical imaging). Five interdependent characteristics of health-related feedback were identified (clarity of the feedback message, personal meaningfulness of the feedback, frequency of feedback, guidance and support accompanying feedback, and interplay between feedback and patient characteristics) and applications for use in diabetes care were provided. Findings suggested that feedback will be most effective when it is easy for patients to understand and is personally meaningful, frequency of feedback is appropriate to the characteristics of the behavior/biomarker, guidance for using feedback is provided, and feedback is qualified by patient characteristics. We suggest that the effectiveness of feedback to promote better diabetes outcomes requires careful consideration of the feedback message, how it is delivered, and characteristics of the recipients.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Abbott Diabetes Care.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following colleagues in the preparation of this manuscript: Jeffrey S. Gonzales, PhD; Linda Gonder-Frederick, PhD; Richard A. Jackson, MD; Julie A. Wagner, PhD; and John D. Piette, PhD.

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Conflict of Interest

William H. Polonsky has served as a consultant for Roche Diabetes Care, Abbott Diabetes Care, Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Care, Dexcom, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi Diabetes, and Takeda. Lawrence Fisher has served as a consultant for Roche Diabetes Care, Abbott Diabetes Care, and Eli Lilly.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    William H. Polonsky

  2. Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Lawrence Fisher

  3. Behavioral Diabetes Institute, San Diego, CA, USA

    William H. Polonsky & Lawrence Fisher

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  1. William H. Polonsky
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Correspondence to William H. Polonsky.

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Polonsky, W.H., Fisher, L. When Does Personalized Feedback Make A Difference? A Narrative Review of Recent Findings and Their Implications for Promoting Better Diabetes Self-Care. Curr Diab Rep 15, 50 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-015-0620-7

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