Continuous Glucose Monitoring User-Wear Experience Fosters Empathy and Learning

To determine if a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) user-wear experience brings value to an advanced diabetes elective course by assessing the impact on empathy and knowledge.

This was a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention study, conducted over 2 offerings of an advanced diabetes elective course. Third-year pharmacy students participated in a 2-part didactic education and user-wear experience involving CGM devices. Students completed a survey at 3 prespecified time points to assess empathy and knowledge (foundational and counseling knowledge). Empathy was assessed using the Kiersma-Chen empathy scale. Knowledge was assessed using predefined multiple-choice questions. Statistical tests include repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni tests for overall and subsection scores on the empathy and knowledge surveys. A partial eta squared was also used to measure effect size for the repeated measures analysis of variance test.

Twenty-nine out of the 36 enrolled students completed all 3 surveys. Compared with a traditional lecture, the CGM user-wear experience demonstrated a significant increase in student self-perceived empathy and counseling knowledge. No change in foundational knowledge was observed.

A CGM user-wear experience provides educational value beyond a traditional lecture. Our study showed that educational outcomes such as empathy and counseling knowledge can be achieved by implementing a CGM user-wear experience. An advanced diabetes elective course provides an ideal environment to optimize CGM learning outcomes with a user-wear experience.