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For years, traditional techniques have been used for diabetes treatment. There are two major types of insulin: insulin analogs and regular insulin. Insulin analogs are similar to regular insulin and lead to changes in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. The purpose of the present research was to determine the cost-effectiveness of insulin analogs versus regular insulin for diabetes control in Yazd Diabetes Center in 2017.

In this descriptive–analytical research, the cost-effectiveness index was used to compare insulin analogs and regular insulin (pen/vial) for treatment of diabetes. Data were analyzed in the TreeAge Software and a decision tree was constructed. A 10% discount rate was used for ICER sensitivity analysis. Cost-effectiveness was examined from a provider's perspective.

QALY was calculated to be 0.2 for diabetic patients using insulin analogs and 0.05 for those using regular insulin. The average cost was $3.228 for analog users and $1.826 for regular insulin users. An ICER of $0.093506/QALY was obtained. The present findings suggest that insulin analogs are more cost-effective than regular insulin.

This study was conducted using a cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate insulin analogs versus regular insulin in controlling diabetes. The results of study are helpful to the government to allocate more resources to apply the cost-effective method of the treatment and to protect patients with diabetes from the high cost of treatment.

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common complications of pregnancy. GDM is defined as glucose intolerance of variable severity with onset or first recognition during pregnancy. The purpose of this paper is to produce information on prevalence, screening and diagnosis, pathophysiology and dietary, medical and lifestyle management of GDM.

This literature review aimed to document and record the results of the most updated studies published dealing with dietary, medical and lifestyle factors in managing GDM.

The prevalence of GDM differs worldwide based on population characteristics, race/ethnicity and diagnostic criteria. The pathophysiology of GDM is multifactorial and it is likely that genetic and environmental factors are associated with the occurrence of GDM. Medical nutritional therapy remains the mainstay of GDM management and aerobic and resistance physical activities are helpful adjunctive therapy when euglycemia is not attained by the medical nutritional therapy alone. When diet and exercise fail to achieve glycemic control, pharmacological agents such as insulin therapy and oral hypoglycemic medications are prescribed. Plasma glucose measurement is an essential part of glycemic control during pregnancy, as well as glycemic control can be evaluated using indicators of glycemic control such as hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), glycated albumin and fructosamine.

This review is a comprehensive review that illustrates the effect of healthy diet, medical therapy and lifestyle change on improving GDM condition.

Diabetes mellitus is a disease with a long recorded history. There are surviving medical texts which show that for centuries physicians have noted the characteristic sweetness of the urine passed by some of their patients. We now know that the disease reflects a failure of the pancreas to secrete adequate amounts of insulin, the hormone which normally maintains the concentration of glucose in the blood within fine limits. In diabetes, the excessive level of sugar in the bloodstream can give rise to metabolic disorders, abnormal losses of sugar and fluid in the urine, and chronic complications caused by damage to the blood vessels. The primary aim in the treatment of the disease is to assist, or even take over the role of the patient's malfunctioning pancreas, and thus hold the concentration of blood glucose as close as possible to the normal range. This can be achieved in mild diabetes by means of a carefully controlled diet, but in many cases this measure has to be coupled with the use of drugs, or with regular injections of insulin.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how pregnant women with type 1 diabetes integrate new information technology (IT) into their health management activities, using activity theory as an analytical framework.

The research is a multiple case design, based on interviews with 15 women with type 1 diabetes who were pregnant, considering pregnancy, or had recently given birth. A thematic analysis, sensitised by activity theory, was used to analyse the data.

Health management in this setting involves negotiations and contradictions across boundaries of interacting activities. Participants play an active role in managing their health and using new IT tools in particular ways to support their health management. Using new technologies creates both opportunities and challenges. IT-enabled healthcare devices and other information systems open up new treatment possibilities, but also generate new contradictions between interacting activity systems.

The research was conducted with a small sample in a specific context of health management. Further research is needed to extend the findings to other contexts.

Healthcare providers need to accommodate a bottom-up approach to the adoption and use of new technologies in settings where empowered patients play an active role in managing their health.

The findings highlight opportunities to further develop activity theory to accommodate the central role that individuals play in resolving inherent contradictions and achieving alignment between multiple interacting activity systems when incorporating new IT tools into health management activities.

Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are promising alternatives to traditional face-to-face psychological interventions to improve psychological outcomes in various chronic health conditions. However, their efficacy among people with diabetes is yet to be established. Therefore, this narrative review aims to identify the importance and need for evidence-based research on DMHIs targeting the psychological outcomes in people with diabetes.

Using a narrative review approach, this study highlights the technological advancements in diabetes health care and identifies a need for developing DMHIs for people with diabetes.

DMHIs are promising for improving psychological outcomes in people with diabetes. However, there is a need for further rigorous, controlled and high-quality diabetes-focused studies, to make firm conclusions on the effectiveness and appropriateness of DMHIs for patients with diabetes. This review also suggests that DMHIs based on psychological theories and studies with higher quality methodologies are also needed.

This review highlights the contemporary literature on diabetes and related technological advancements. The findings of this study serve as a basis of the improvement of policy on digital mental health services for people with diabetes, to impact the global burden of the disease.

The purpose of this paper is to apply Bow-tie methodology, a proactive risk assessment technique based on systemic approach, for prospective analysis of the risks threatening patient safety in intensive care unit (ICU).

Bow-tie methodology was used to manage clinical risks threatening patient safety by a multidisciplinary team in the ICU. The Bow-tie analysis was conducted on incidents related to high-alert medications, ventilator associated pneumonia, catheter-related blood stream infection, urinary tract infection, and unwanted extubation.

In total, 48 potential adverse events were analysed. The causal factors were identified and classified into relevant categories. The number and effectiveness of existing preventive and protective barriers were examined for each potential adverse event. The adverse events were evaluated according to the risk criteria and a set of interventions were proposed with the aim of improving the existing barriers or implementing new barriers. A number of recommendations were implemented in the ICU, while considering their feasibility.

The application of Bow-tie methodology led to practical recommendations to eliminate or control the hazards identified. It also contributed to better understanding of hazard prevention and protection required for safe operations in clinical settings.

This paper aims to analyze dLife, an integrated media network dedicated to empowering Americans living with diabetes. It shows how dLife's use of integrated marketing communications (IMC), particularly the public relations component, represents an emerging direction in health product and services marketing. Although some have been skeptical about IMC and specifically the public relations role within it, the paper aims to argue that public relations, through sponsorships, helps organizations interested in IMC to create new types of relationships with marketers and patients.

To demonstrate public relations' importance in IMC, dLife's relationship with the changing health marketing landscape is contextualized. Constitutive and empowerment theory is employed to frame a rhetorical analysis of dLife's efforts to target marketers and patients. The rhetorical analysis demonstrates how dLife's rhetorical choices help to shape marketer strategy, patient identity and discursive behavior.

The paper finds that dLife's use of public relations as part of its IMC approach helps to create more engaging disease education yet increases commercial content in patients' lives. It further theorizes the role of public relations within the IMC framework, an area that has been neglected in scholarship.

This is a rhetorical study that should be complemented by empirical methods in order to comprehensively explore the IMC/health information issue.

The paper demonstrates to practitioners how public relations sponsorships used in IMC build trust and boost education and awareness among target audiences. The paper also cautions that public relations practitioners' use of IMC may privilege corporate interests over patient concerns.

This is the first research study of a corporation's use of public relations sponsorships as part of an overall IMC strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to find the impact of food price volatility on child health and education attainment in urban areas of Pakistan. This research also compares the two variables among the two time periods: the period of low volatile food prices (2014‒2015) and the period of high volatile food prices (2013‒2014). The rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are used as proxies for child health and child education, respectively.

This study employs propensity score matching (PSM) technique introduced by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), to overcome the selection bias problem in the observational studies.

The closing part of the paper concludes that both the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are significantly poorer for the households of Pakistan in the control period (of high food price volatility) as compared to the treated period (of low food price volatility). After controlling the problem of selection bias through PSM technique, it is found that there is a further increase in the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance. It proves that the data were biased before applying the matching technique.

This study lengthens the literature by identifying the impact of food price volatility on child health and education of urban households of Pakistan, using high frequency data of PSLM/HIES, with the help of semi-parametric technique of matching. This type of micro-level research has not been conducted (nationally or internationally) so far; therefore, it would possibly open a sphere for policy makers to implement the suitable policies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2019-0275.