Care Partner Experiences in Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults With Diabetes

Care partners play an important role in diabetes management of people with diabetes. Although deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) adults experience diabetes at a higher rate than their hearing counterparts, there is a lack of information regarding the experience of care partners assisting those in the DHH community. There is a need to identify intentional support for this population. The purpose of this study was to explore how care partners of DHH people with diabetes provide helpful and unhelpful support, the care partner experience of providing support, and care partners’ perceived diabetes self-management education, support needs, and recommendations. We engaged a community advisory board of care partners to DHH people with diabetes to explore how care partners provide support, their individual experiences in providing support, and their suggestions for diabetes self-management education. We used thematic analysis to analyze individual and collective responses. Three emergent themes were identified suggesting that care partners give support in a variety of ways, are often overwhelmed in meeting the demanding and ongoing needs of DHH people with diabetes, and have a multitude of suggestions for implementing a future diabetes care partner education program. We also identified some DHH population-specific challenges to diabetes care, including communication barriers with health care providers, inability to use hearing cues if a person with diabetes experiences a fall, and limited access to diabetes care education in sign language. These findings highlight a need to provide more support for care partners of DHH people with diabetes and to address the needs of DHH populations to ensure more equitable diabetes care. Further research is needed to adequately inform successful interventions for DHH people with diabetes and their care partners.