In an era of rapid change, we unpack new and emerging ways to do research and consider what’s next for psychosocial diabetes research
By Eloise Litterbach & Uffe Søholm
At the ACBRD, we use both quantitative (e.g., numbers and statistics) and qualitative (e.g, conversations, free-text responses) methods. We explore the thoughts, feelings, behaviours and social factors that shape life with diabetes. We work closely with people affected by diabetes through approaches such as co-design, and develop and test programs to improve care and support. But in a rapidly changing world, we need to make sure our research methods are keeping up with advances.
What did we do?
ACBRD researchers, Dr Eloise Litterbach and Dr Uffe Søholm joined international leaders, from Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands to review how research methods are adapting to a changing world, and responding to the needs of diabetes communities.
This narrative review explores new and emerging research methods that can help advance psychosocial diabetes research.
What did we find?
Researchers are using creative and innovative methods to better understand life with diabetes and conduct research that is relevant, useful and timely.
Qualitative research is capturing more lived expertise voices, experiences and preferences than ever before. However, some community voices are not yet well represented. To capture more diversity, researchers are exploring approaches such as
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- Creative storytelling methods: Using creative arts and culturally specific ways of sharing stories, such as ‘yarning’.
- Using digital technologies to conduct research across different locations.
- Moving beyond words, collective qualitative information through photos, imagery and social media content.
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Newer quantitative methods are ‘zooming in’ on the individual. They are personalising how we collect research data and providing a more complete story. Some examples include:
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- Ecological Momentary Assessment: Sending brief daily questions on people’s smartphones to explore everyday life experiences and change over time. This can also be paired with brief interventions to help people in real-time.
- Combining different types of data. For example, linking survey data, continuous glucose data, step counts or sleep information from wearable devices. This provides a more complete story
- Creating virtual versions of a person, known as “digital twins” to predict how a person might respond to a particular treatment.
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Where to next?
These new approaches show great promise. To make the most of them, we suggest:
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- Using mixed methods research: Combine stories and statistics. This can give a clearer picture of what we know, what we don’t know yet, and what to do about it.
- Working together with people with diabetes to decide which research approaches are most useful, relevant and acceptable.
- New diabetes technology, social media, apps, and AI are changing the way research is done. These tools should be used in ways that are helpful, ethical, and protect privacy and data security.
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Reference:
Ehrmann D, Litterbach E, Deschenes S, Forde R, Hermanns N, Horsselenberg M, Jansen M, McInerney A, Morrissey E, Schmitt A, Søholm U. From narratives to numbers and back: Assessing the psychosocial aspects of diabetes in the era of high technology with emerging qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Diabetic Medicine. 2026 Jan 2:e70206.
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