[Educational value of diabetes camps for children]

Patient education plays a key role in diabetes care, and summer camps have been shown to be of value in teaching diabetic children. In our camps, we have shown that education significantly improves knowledge of diabetes in both 6-11 and 12-16 year old children. This increased knowledge was retained for at least one year in both age groups. We show that structured age group education associated with individualized teaching was more efficient in enhancing diabetes knowledge than individualized education alone. Camp attendance also significantly improved the children's self-management at home. We show a strong correlation between the degree of diabetes knowledge and autonomy (r = 0.82) which was independent of both the children's age and duration of diabetes. The lack of a strong correlation between the improved metabolic control assessed 3 months after camp (p less than 0.05), and either increased knowledge and/or autonomy in the children tested, confirms that other factors influence their adaptation to diabetes. In conclusion, camps whose teaching staff is well trained in educational methods are of value in enhancing both the diabetes knowledge and self-management of children as young as 6 years of age, and/or of children whose diabetes is of recent onset, and may therefore be helpful in improving their coping processes.