# Development of a Group Emotion-Focused Behavioral Intervention for Diabetes Distress and Glycemic Management in Patients with T2D.

> **NIH NIH R01** · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $315,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
T2D is a major public health problem and is currently the 7th leading cause of death in the US. Despite a range
of efficacious treatments, less than 50% of patients achieve a glycemic target of A1c < 7.0%, suggesting that this
is due to difficulty with following medical regimens to reduce A1C levels. While a range of factors have been
identified in this regard, we posit that a barrier to treatment are broad difficulty with emotional regulation that are
not diagnosis-specific but lead to Diabetes Distress (DD) and difficulty in coping with medical regimens, and
other aspects of diabetes self-care, in the context of the psychosocial stressors associated with T2D. Extant data
suggests that sub-optimal emotional regulation (experience of intense emotion and skill at regulating emotion)
is related to elevated DD and A1c levels, and that an Emotion-Focused Behavioral Intervention (EFBI) can reduce
both DD and A1c levels in PWD with T2D. In this project we seek to, first, adapt our EFBI, initially developed as
a one-to-one intervention, to a group intervention (G-EFBI) and, two, collect feasibility, acceptability, and
preliminary efficacy data to determine if G-EFBI is a feasible, acceptable and, possibly, efficacious intervention
compared to an “Attentional Control” intervention in PWD with T2D and elevated DD and A1c levels.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10803197
- **Project number:** 1R01DK135948-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** EMIL Frank COCCARO
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $315,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-02-01 → 2027-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10803197

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10803197, Development of a Group Emotion-Focused Behavioral Intervention for Diabetes Distress and Glycemic Management in Patients with T2D. (1R01DK135948-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10803197. Licensed CC0.

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