Lifelong Learning With Type 1 Diabetes: The Lived Experiences of Adults Diagnosed in Younger Years

Purpose The purpose of this study was to illuminate the lived experiences of lifelong learning in self-care from the perspective of adults diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in younger years. Methods In 2020 to 2021 a hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted in Sweden based on individual conversational interviews. Participants in the study were 20 consecutively chosen adults diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, ages 25 to 75 years (median 44.5 years) and with an illness duration of 10 to 61 years (median 26 years), recruited purposively via social media. Results The analysis of participants’ lived experiences of lifelong learning in self-care generated the overall theme “making meaning of type 1 diabetes as a lifelong illness”; this process was constantly challenged or triggered by all other ongoing or occurring processes in the participants’ everyday lives. More precisely, the participants likened this to having a ticket for a lifelong journey of personal learning, largely informal, characterized by a continuous reconstruction of one’s understanding of the illness and the necessary self-care while having to acknowledge, understand, manage, and endure diabetes. Conclusions Study findings suggest that lifelong learning in diabetes self-care in everyday life means learning how to become and remain a lifelong learner in the trajectory of diabetes. Thus, continuously learning how to manage self-care in different situations throughout life helps those diagnosed with a lifelong illness to construct and reconstruct living with the illness into a meaningful life.