Calibrating logics: How adolescents and young adults calibrate often-competing logics in their daily self-management of type 1 diabetes
Professor Ayo Wahlberg has contributed to the journal ‘Health’ with the article ‘Calibrating logics: How adolescents and young adults calibrate often-competing logics in their daily self-management of type 1 diabetes’.
The article is co-written with Emilie Mølholm Kjærulff, Natasja Kingod, and Mirjam Due Tiemensma.
In the article, the authors explore the logics invoked in shaping daily type 1 diabetes self-management among adolescents and young adults and propose an analytical view of self-management as a matter of ‘calibrating logics’. Adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes must manage a demanding chronic condition in their daily lives, but adequate self-management remains a major challenge.
The analysis of in-depth interviews with 21 adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes suggested that three main logics collectively shaped their self-management: biomedical, embodied and social.
- Biomedical logics appeared in the form of routinised insulin therapy, frequent blood glucose testing, and carbohydrate counting, all of which emphasise controlling blood glucose levels.
- Embodied logics emerged as refined practices such as ‘thinking insulin units’ and ‘listening’ to blood glucose fluctuations.
- Finally, social logics were at play when discreet or postponed self-management practices were used to adjust to social situations.
Study participants invoked how these logics often competed in daily life, generating tensions. The authors therefore propose viewing self-management as a matter of calibrating logics in which often-competing logics are at play. This can provide nuanced insights into the effort and challenges related to the daily self-management of type 1 diabetes for adolescents and young adults, in contrast to the prevailing dichotomy of adherence versus nonadherence to prescribed treatment regimens.
Read the full on the website of ‘Health': Calibrating logics: How adolescents and young adults calibrate often-competing logics in their daily self-management of type 1 diabetes