Introduction
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disorder of multiple aetiology characterized by chronic hyperglycaemia with disturbances of carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both [1]. There are two common conditions of DM: type 1 and type 2. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is the most common form of diabetes and is characterized by disorders of insulin action and insulin secretion, either of which may be the predominant feature.
DM is an increasingly important medical and public health issue. The prevalence of diabetes in adults worldwide is estimated to rise from 171 million in the year 2000 to 366 million in the year 2030 [2]. The major part of this increase is expected to occur in developing countries, with the greatest absolute increase expected to be seen in India. Similarly, the number of diabetic patients in the United States is expected to rise from 17.7 million in the year 2000 to 30.3 million 30 years later, given the increasing incidence of obesity [3].
Being a progressive disease, T2DM is one of the chronic conditions, which favours a focus on behavioural intervention. Lifestyle intervention has been the forefront runner in the prevention and management of T2DM [4]. Besides, a wide range of interventions aimed at improving the provision of diabetes care and achieving better metabolic control for patients with diabetes have been implemented [5].
The Internet holds promise for a wide-scale promotion of behavioural change to facilitate the prevention and management of T2DM, besides being an important source of health information and thus may be an appropriate delivery medium for health behaviour change interventions. The Internet's potential has been recognised and web-based education programmes have been steadily adopted in recent years in preventing and managing chronic diseases [6], [7], [8], [9]. Unlike face-to-face interventions, website-delivered interventions can potentially reach broad populations as it is available 24 h, and could be hosted by both government and non-governmental agencies.
This review provides a descriptive discussion of web-based behavioural interventions in patients with T2DM. For each intervention studied here, objective, targeted outcome, characteristics of the study, the major content of the intervention and most important findings were assessed.