Impact of Communicating Familial Risk of Diabetes on Illness Perceptions and Self-Reported Behavioral Outcomes

OBJECTIVE — To assess the potential effectiveness of communicating familial risk of diabe-tes on illness perceptions and self-reported behavioral outcomes. RESEARCHDESIGNANDMETHODS — Individuals with a family history of diabetes were randomized to receive risk information based on familial and general risk factors (n 59) or general risk factors alone (n 59). Outcomes were assessed using questionnaires at baseline, 1 week, and 3 months. RESULTS — Compared with individuals receiving general risk information, those receiving familial risk information perceived heredity to be a more important cause of diabetes (P 0.01) at 1-week follow-up, perceived greater control over preventing diabetes (P 0.05), and reported having eaten more healthily (P 0.01) after 3 months. Behavioral intentions did not differ between the groups. CONCLUSIONS — Communicating familial risk increased personal control and, thus, did not result in fatalism. Although the intervention did not influence intentions to change behavior, there was some evidence to suggest it increases healthy behavior. Diabetes Care 32:597–599, 2009 P revention of type 2 diabetes is espe-cially important for people with apositive family history of diabetes because family history is one of the stron-gest risk factors (1). Individuals with a positive family history have difficulty un-derstanding the causes of diabetes (2), underestimate their risk (3), and are less likely than those without a family history to believe that diabetes is preventable (4). Family history information might be used to raise awareness of individual risk and thereby positively influence preventive behaviors to reduce the risk (5). However, the belief that diabetes is determined mainly by genetic predisposition may prevent individuals from engaging in risk-reducing behavior as a result of fatal-ism (2,6,7). The aim of this study was to assess the potential effectiveness of com-municating familial risk of diabetes on ill-ness perceptions and self-reported behavioral outcomes