When providing helpful information isn’t enough: A web-based intervention to address insulin worries

Dr. Bill Polonsky
And it’s so funny, you know, like we put together interventions like this, and we when we see how little important things can work, you know, like if I provide people videos of their peers, I see someone who’s being successful, how that can make a big difference. All these things can work, but it requires helping people get to the point where they might be willing to actually look at them.

And it’s that aversive quality “take your medicine!” for example, that says, Well, I’d just rather do almost anything else, you know? And that’s why I, I’m humbled in the face of this and in reading this manuscript. It was so well done. It really reminds me of the challenges.

You know, years ago, I should mention, I almost forgotten about this. We put together a conversational workbook on this subject about the different ways you might be worried about going on insulin.

Here are some new ways to think about insulin differently, but it was designed as a conversational workbook that a healthcare provider would talk about with their patient. We were planning and hoping that one of the insulin companies would fund this development. And we had one insulin company that was absolutely thrilled by this. We finally finished our final planning, and they said, “we want to send this out to patients all over the country.” No, no, no. Please don’t send this to anybody. No, the idea is this is a conversational workbook, but it’s designed so you have a conversation.

So we said, “no, we don’t want to do that.” This is a waste of my time and their money. So it remains this interesting odd challenge.