Thirty million Americans currently have diabetes, and a substantial portion do not reach the goals of clinical treatment. This is in part due to the complex barriers to effective self-care faced by people with diabetes. This study uses a patient work perspective, focusing on the everyday, lived experience of managing diabetes. Our primary research goal was to explore how the work of self-care is embedded in the other routines of everyday living. We found that everyday objects and spaces were instrumental in the incorporation of diabetes work into daily routines. Objects anchored diabetes tasks by linking illness-specific artifacts to space and time (e.g. a morning routine), and by enabling the performance on diabetes tasks while on the move in either planned or unplanned ways.

目前有三千万美国人患有糖尿病，其中很大一部分没有达到临床治疗的目标。部分原因是糖尿病患者面临着有效自我保健的复杂障碍。这项研究从患者工作的角度出发，侧重于管理糖尿病的日常生活经验。我们的主要研究目标是探索自我护理的工作如何嵌入到其他日常生活中。我们发现，日常物品和空间有助于将糖尿病工作纳入日常工作。通过将特定于疾病的工件与空间和时间相关联（例如，早上例行），并通过以计划内或计划外的方式在执行糖尿病任务时执行性能，对象可以固定糖尿病任务。