Effectiveness of ketoacidosis prevention campaigns at diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

AIM: To determine if diabetes awareness campaigns are an effective intervention to reduce diabetes ketoacidosis at diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in children and youth. METHODS Search strategies included PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL and WOS electronic databases, hand search of select journals and a grey literature search "Google" search to include all relevant information. Studies included community-based interventions focused on children younger than 18 years old. The difference in the frequency of DKA was measured in two separate comparisons; before and after perform awareness campaigns in the same area, and between areas with and without intervention campaigns. RESULTS Of 1136 records identified, 14 studies were eligible for the analysis. The first group of 12 studies measured DKA at diagnosis, before (n = 6548 individuals) and after (n = 4931 individuals) the awareness campaigns. The pooled difference was a reduction of 7.20% (95%CI: 0.99-13.41). The second group of four studies measured the difference in an area with no intervention (n = 338 individuals) and in an area with an awareness campaign (n = 187 individuals). The pooled difference in DKA was 35.71% (95%CI: 5.81-65.61). CONCLUSIONS This review demonstrated that DKA awareness campaigns are effective to reduce DKA among children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes and the core components that explain why these campaigns are effective. Back to top.