Abstract:
Background: Diabetes group education is a cost effective
alternative to individual education with the potential to
significantly improve diabetes care. We compared the effect of
group versus individual diabetes education on the diabetes
knowledge test scores of adult type 2 diabetics in a primary care
setting.
Methods: A comparative study consisting of two hundred
consenting type 2 diabetics receiving care at the general
outpatient department of Bingham University Teaching
Hospital was done. Subjects were recruited by systematic
random sampling and randomly allocated into intervention
(group education) and control (one- on- one education) in 10
blocks of 20 subjects each. Socio-demographic, clinical and
diabetes knowledge score data were obtained with
standardized questionnaires from both groups at 0 and12
weeks.
Results: A total of 142 patients completed the study,
intervention (n = 82) and control (n = 60). Overall, 104(28.9%)
passed the diabetes knowledge test (DKT),66 (80.5%) in the
group education compared to 38 (63.3%) in the control group,
OR 2.39 (1.12-5.09). The mean DKT score was higher in the
intervention group at the end of the study, 8.48 ±2.4 vs
7.58±2.4, p=0.03. The intervention group had a similar change
in mean DKT score, 2.16 vs 1.73, p=0.37. Multinomial logistic
regression revealed that tertiary education was significantly
related to diabetes knowledge test status (OR= 0.39; 95%
CI:0.16-0.99).
Conclusion: This study demonstrated poor diabetes
knowledge in the entire study group before the intervention, but
comparable improvement in diabetes knowledge in the two
groups.
Keywords: Type 2 diabetes mellitus, Diabetes knowledge,
Education, Group visits
Highland Med Res J 2015;15(1):19-22
