Yale Bulletin and Calendar

February 22, 2008|Volume 36, Number 19

Dean Grey cited for ‘landmark’
nursing research

A program developed by Yale School of Nursing Dean Margaret Grey that provides coping skills training for diabetic children has been cited as one of the 10 most significant studies in the 22-year history of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).

Type 1 diabetes affects over 200,000 children and adolescents in the United States. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to problems such as poor circulation, high blood pressure, kidney damage and blindness. However, management of diabetes, which involves frequent testing of blood sugar levels and injections of insulin, often proves difficult among adolescents, especially when they are in social situations involving peer pressure and fear of being seen as different.

Grey’s program, called Coping Skills Training (CST), aims to increase teens’ sense of competence and mastery by redirecting inappropriate or unconstructive coping styles into more positive behavior patterns regarding their routine diabetes management.

According to the NINR, “The teens that received CST maintained better metabolic control, and showed a significant improvement in long-term blood sugar levels, compared to the control group. Just as important, they experienced a decrease in depressive symptoms and reported a better quality of life. … [T]he content of the CST program could benefit teenagers with other chronic conditions as they struggle through the turbulent years of puberty.”

To date, over 100 practices that manage the care for teenage diabetics have requested the CST manual developed by Grey and her team to incorporate the training into their routine care.

“Nursing research is about helping people deal with the hand that they’ve been dealt,” says Grey. “People who have children with chronic illnesses have been dealt a bad hand. It’s very difficult to manage a child with something like diabetes. It takes a tremendous amount of effort on the part of the entire family. And so what we do is try to develop ways that help them manage very difficult situations better that lead to better outcomes for families as well as for the children.”

The NINR is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Health. Its booklet, “Changing Practice, Changing Lives: 10 Landmark Nursing Research Studies,” can be downloaded at www.ninr.nih.gov/NewsAndInformation.

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