The Oxford International Diabetes Summit: Implications of the DAWN study: 7-8 April 2002, Oxford, UK

The DAWN (Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs) study was instigated by Novo Nordisk in order to assess the perceptions and attitudes of people with diabetes and health care providers to the management and care of diabetes. The study was conducted between August 2000 and September 2001 in 11 countries or regions: Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) and the USA, with the focus on drivers of effective self-management amongst over 5400 people with diabetes and over 3800 diabetes health care providers (specialist doctors, GPs and nurses). The objective of the DAWN study was to provide information of value in improving diabetes care and the well being of diabetic patients and to enhance and complement data derived from other reported psychosocial studies. To this end, the first Oxford DAWN International Summit met to consider its implications and resolve ways in which the findings of the DAWN study could be implemented. The interactive nature of the summit was enhanced by the use of computer-linked individual keypads, so that delegates could participate interactively and vote on a range of issues. Following presentations on the key issues surrounding DAWN, a series of participant workshops considered the issues that had been raised and produced their recommendations for future action. Opening the Summit, Chairman Dr David Matthews (Chairman of the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Oxford, UK) commented on its multi-national and multi-disciplinary nature and how this was bringing together different stakeholder perspectives. Use of the keypads showed that Denmark, USA, Germany and the UK (in that order) were the best represented. Delegates included diabetologists, nurses, behavioural scientists, GPs, patients and health payors. These different perspectives would be important in arriving at conclusions. The DAWN study had endeavoured to discover the person behind the patient and to establish to what degree self-care management truly involved a partnership between patient and health care provider. Dr Matthews emphasised the psychosocial nature of the survey and the ways in which this aspect of care had perhaps been somewhat neglected in the past. DAWN represented an opportunity for change; this challenge should be welcomed. He hoped that the outcome of the summit would have a long lasting effect over the coming years.