Empirical Identification of Techniques Useful for Counseling Patients with Diabetes

Abstract

Instruction for counseling patients with diabetes is based primarily on intuition from clinical experience and inferences from related research. To identify potentially useful counseling techniques, we elicited descrip tions of effective skills from analogue patients (APs) who played the roles of diabetic patients in practice counseling sessions with nurse and dietitian course participants. APs were first- and second-year graduate students in psychology, trained to play one offour patient roles. After each role play, the APs provided written feedback regarding "three things the counselor did that I felt best about. " The two most frequently cited behaviors were (1) consid ering needs other than those related to diabetes in making adherence recommendations, and (2) providing clear, concrete advice. Further research with actual diabetic patients is needed to validate the present findings and to explore such ambiguities as when to give advice versus when to ask questions.