51-LB: The Impact of Digital Health Coaching on the Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS)

The ADA’s recent release of the Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes recommends including technology-based methods for the delivery of effective diabetes self-management education and support. Self-management of diabetes involves meal planning, taking medications, blood glucose monitoring, physical activity, coordinating care, and others. The program developed by Pack Health addresses all of the tasks above and more through a structured 12-week program, evidence-based tools, and a non-prescriptive Health Advisor. The program has over 60 proactive outbound touchpoints that originate from the Health Advisor (via text messages, emails, and/or phone calls). The Pack Health program collects and utilizes patient-reported outcomes (PROs) along with clinical measures, self-reported by patients. All data is used for coaching sessions and evaluation purposes. This study examines the impact of Digital Health Coaching on a national diabetes population (n=198) and an African American sub-population (n=57) enrolled in the South (AL, GA, FL, MS) upon completion of the initial 12-weeks of engagement. The DDS is a 17-item scale that captures four critical dimensions of distress: emotional burden, regimen distress, interpersonal distress and physical distress. DDS score benchmarks are established at little to no diabetes distress (<2.0), moderate diabetes distress (2.0-2.9), high diabetes distress (≥3.0). Health coaching demonstrates the following impact: National Diabetes Population: Baseline: 3.0; Post: 2.2; Improvement: 0.8 African Americans in the South: Baseline: 3.0; Post: 2.1; Improvement: 0.9 The data above emphasizes that digital coaching program can have a significant impact on Diabetes Distress for a general population and African American population in the South. Disclosure M. Allison: None. U. Srivastava: None. S.B. Burton: None. M. Rasulnia: None. D. Patel: None.