Aoibheann who will be starting the final year of the BSc Public Health Sciences this year is a recipient of the HRB Summer Student Scholarship Award (2022).
Aoibheann is undertaking the 8-week scholarship under the supervision of Dr Fiona Riordan. Over the course of the scholarship, Aoibheann will work on a project entitled “The Experiences of individuals living with diabetes during Covid-19: A photovoice project”.
The project will explore the experiences of individuals living with diabetes during Covid-19, including the challenges faced in terms of self-managing the condition in the face of disruption to health services. The project also aims to document the impact of attending structured diabetes education programme, Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating (DAFNE), on the lives of people with diabetes, to better understand the benefits of such programmes and the process of adopting the programme principles in every-day life, particularly throughout the pandemic.
A community-based participatory approach, called photovoice, whereby participants take photographs of important and meaningful aspects of their lives and explain their significance, will be used to offer an insight into the reality of living with diabetes during the pandemic. The project outputs will serve as a resource to raise awareness about diabetes management during Covid-19 and to highlight the role of education programmes like DAFNE.
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