Background:

Acceptance and adjustment to lifelong noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) pose a great challenge for individuals living with these conditions. Diabetes is one of the most prevalent NCDs, with type 1 diabetes usually diagnosed during childhood. Self-leadership is linked to internal and external factors that may motivate individuals with NCDs to play an active role as changemakers in their community or society. The Young Leaders in Diabetes (YLD) training, created to equip young people with skills that would benefit the population to which they belong, uses the Empowerment Ladder as a framework to identify their position relative to three leadership stages (self, community and society).

Objective:

To describe the stages and the ‘climbing’ process of the Empowerment Ladder and assess its suitability as a framework for use in a leadership training context.

Method:

From among 29 youth leaders who participated, 15 were selected (5 men and 10 women) and had their community engagement and activity analysed before and after training. Individuals were positioned on the Empowerment Ladder according to their past and current roles and activities. The difference between pre- and post-training test grades (delta scores) was calculated.

Results:

Post-training scores were significantly higher than pre-training scores (8.9 ± 0.54 vs 7.6 ± 1.08, p = .00084). Most individuals moved to a higher step on the Empowerment Ladder; however, three individuals, with delta scores lower than the median (0.1, 0.15 and 0.85) remained at their pre-YLD training level. Only one individual moved from Stage 1 (self) to Stage 3 (society). Another individual occupied two different steps at Stages 1 and 2 simultaneously because, although they demonstrated community leadership, they had not yet accepted their own health condition.

Conclusion:

The Empowerment Ladder proved a useful tool for identifying stages from self to broader levels of leadership in individuals living with type 1 diabetes. These initial findings need to be validated with a larger population, which includes other NCD groups.

中文翻译：

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赋权阶梯：了解1型糖尿病和其他非传染性疾病患者跨领导阶段的过渡

背景：

终身非传染性疾病（NCDs）的接受和调整对患有这些疾病的个人构成了巨大挑战。糖尿病是最流行的非传染性疾病之一，通常在儿童时期就诊断出1型糖尿病。自我领导与内部和外部因素相关联，这些因素可能促使患有非传染性疾病的人在社区或社会中扮演变革者的积极角色。糖尿病青年领袖（YLD）培训旨在为年轻人提供有益于他们所属人群的技能，并使用赋权阶梯作为框架来确定他们相对于三个领导阶段（自我，社区和社会）的地位。

目的：

描述赋权阶梯的阶段和“爬升”过程，并评估其是否适合用作领导力培训环境的框架。

方法：

从29名青年领袖中选出15名（5名男性和10名女性），并在培训前后对他们的社区参与和活动进行了分析。根据他们过去和当前的角色和活动，将个人定位在赋权阶梯上。计算出训练前后考试成绩之间的差异（增量得分）。

结果：

训练后的分数明显高于训练前的分数（8.9±0.54 vs 7.6±1.08，p = .00084）。大多数人在赋权阶梯上迈出了更高的一步。但是，有3个人的三角洲分数低于中位数（0.1、0.15和0.85），仍保持他们在YLD之前的训练水平。只有一个人从第一阶段（自身）移至第三阶段（社会）。另一个人同时在第一阶段和第二阶段占据了两个不同的步骤，因为尽管他们表现出社区领导能力，但他们尚未接受自己的健康状况。

结论：

赋能阶梯被证明是确定1型糖尿病患者从自我到更广泛领导能力阶段的有用工具。这些初步发现需要更多的人口来验证，其中包括其他非传染性疾病人群。