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Even brief diabetes education programs aid self-management
Programs aimed at prompting patients to become more engaged in their own treatment may have long-term beneficial effects.
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For many patients with diabetes, even a short educational intervention can be effective in helping them improve self-management skills.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Hawaii and Joslin Diabetes Center have found that after patients with diabetes participated in a brief educational intervention, self-management improved and metabolic testing increased.
The researchers, led by William Polonsky, PhD, CDE, said the educational intervention helped patients become more aware of their disease and the factors that affect their overall health.
“A brief educational intervention designed to explain the meaning and utility of the major clinical tests in diabetes, combined with on-site testing that provided patients with their own immediate results, appeared to be successful in encouraging patients to obtain more regular metabolic testing, improve self-care behaviors and become more aware of their own clinical status,” Polonsky and his colleagues wrote in the Diabetes Educator.
The researchers said that interventions aimed at prompting patients to become more engaged in their own treatment may have beneficial effects on long-term metabolic control and patient-provider communication.
90-minute workshop
Patients with diabetes were invited to attend a 90-minute, small-group workshop about diabetes care. A total of 221 patients with either type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes attended.
The workshop included educational information as well as on-site testing of HbA1c, blood pressure, LDL cholesterol and microalbumin. Patients were provided with immediate results for these tests.
Each patient also received personalized feedback so that everyone could understand their test results. At the end of the session, patients were helped to develop a personal plan to improve the self-management of their disease.
They were given questionnaires regarding their overall health habits when they came to the workshop and again three months later. At the time of the workshop, only a small percentage of patients were familiar with their clinical markers. A lack of awareness of these markers was seen even in patients who had recently been tested by a health care provider.
According to Polonsky and his colleagues, after three months, significant improvements were seen in patients’ meal planning, exercise habits and blood glucose monitoring. There was also a significant increase in patient awareness of the measured markers.
“The current results suggest that many patients are lacking in clinical test awareness and that a brief educational intervention, delivered by trained community educators, can successfully enhance awareness and understanding of their own clinical status, improve self-management efforts, and encourage them to seek out more regular metabolic testing,” the researchers wrote.
“Furthermore, these data indicate that those who completed follow-up testing were more likely to recall and understand their clinical results at three months.” – by Jay Lewis
For more information:
- Polonsky W, Zee J, Ah Yee M, et al. A community-based program to encourage patients’ attention to their own diabetes care: Pilot development and evaluation. Diabetes Educ. 2005;31:691-699.