Education for people with type 2 diabetes: what do patients want?

Journal of Diabetes Nursing, April, 2005 by Jackie Sturt, Hilary Hearnshaw, Julie H. Barlow, Jenny Hainsworth, Sandra Whitlock

2 Patients need to develop a level of knowledge if they are to effectively self-care.

3 Patients need to be able to relate diabetes knowledge to their personal situation.

4 They need to understand the process of behavioural applications.

5 They need health professionals to support specific behaviour change.

6 People with type 2 diabetes need to be offered structured education programmes.

KEY WORDS

* Type 2 diabetes

* Self-management

* Educational needs

* Support needs

RELATED ARTICLE: PAGE POINTS

1 Participants wanted to be able to understand how to relate their newly acquired knowledge to their own situation.

2 Six focus groups were convened and participants allocated to a group according to whether they had recently been diagnosed with diabetes or changed therapy in the previous 12 months.

3 Twenty-three people took part in the six focus groups. Each group discussed questions from a pre-determined schedule (Table 2).

RELATED ARTICLE: Table 2. Focus group schedule

1. Types of information, education and support required as a consequence of diagnosis/change in therapy.

2. At what points in time were different pieces of information, education and support required?

3. In what ways were/are self-management needs being met?

4. How have the participants contributed to meeting their own self-management needs?

5. How are health information and services used?

6. How do the participants manage their own diabetes and general health needs?

7. What types of services should be developed to meet their self-management needs?

8. Attitudes surrounding lay-led and professional-led support and services.

9. What do the participants think health professionals think they need?

RELATED ARTICLE: PAGE POINTS

1 Knowledge of the possible complications and their symptoms meant that participants could be more aware of the first signs of the development of complications.

2 Participants also wanted the support of health professionals in helping them to apply their acquired knowledge and personal data to their diabetes self-management.

3 Participants valued care that enabled them to self-manage with confidence and which, in turn, fostered a greater sense of self-control over their health care.

RELATED ARTICLE: PAGE POINT

1 The key educational needs are provision of information, training in personal monitoring, and specific and general goal setting and evaluation.

RELATED ARTICLE: PAGE POINTS

1 The investigators' findings suggest that their focus group members were able to articulate and justify their own educational requirements.

2 The key educational needs are provision of information, training in personal monitoring, and specific and general goal setting and evaluation.

3 The results of this study may be of value to those involved in evaluating education and self-management programmes for people with type 2 diabetes.

Jackie Sturt is R&D Lecturer in Social Sciences. Warwick Diabetes Care, Centre for Primary Health Care Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, Hilary Hearnshaw is Reader/Director of Research, Warwick Diabetes Care, University of Warwick, Julie H Barlow is Professor of Health Psychology, Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Health, Coventry University, Jenny Hainsworth is Clinical Psychologist, Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Health, Coventry University, and Sandra Whitlock is Research Fellow, Centre for Primary Health Care Studies, University of Warwick.