Future research directions
Further research is needed to confirm the present findings, especially
for carbohydrate counting and longer-term follow-up designs to assess
other biochemical outcomes to validate self-reported behaviour.
Longer-term designs, potentially integrated into health care clinics,
would also be useful to check for intervention effects given common
health complications and to establish the cost-effectiveness of
behaviour change interventions in this context. Also, the utility of an
integrated theory intervention approach for other key self-management
practices such as self-monitoring of blood glucose and medication
adherence should be assessed. Considering the growing prevalence of T2D
in adolescents and children, further studies are needed to promote
diabetes management behaviours in these age groups including parental
adherence to carbohydrate counting and individuals diagnosed with type 1
diabetes (Kawamura, 2007,
Scavone et al., 2010,
Bell et al., 2014).