Diabetes Education and Self-management Program of Persons with Type 2 Diabetes, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province

บทคัดย่อ

Diabetes is a non-communicable disease which is one of the important public health problems that needs to be solved and to prevent complications if the patients could not control blood sugar level effectively. This study was a quasi-experimental research aiming to assess the effectiveness of a diabetes education and self-management program of persons with Type 2 diabetes in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province. The samples were composed of 40 persons with Type 2 diabetes. The sampling was made, in accordance with the criteria set, with the diabetic patients aged 40-65 years who could not control blood sugar level. Diabetes education and self-management program was developed by applying self-efficacy theory and the concepts of self-management and social support. The program lasted 13 weeks and the health education methods used for organizing learning activities in the program were included lecture with slide shows, group discussion, demonstration, modeling, practice, behavioral goal setting, selffollowing-up, self-reinforcement, and assessing performances in accordance with the behavioral goal set. The instruments used for data collection were interview schedule and behavior-record form. Socio-demographic data were analyzed by computing percentage, arithmetic means, and standard deviation and Paired Sample t-test was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results showed that after the experimentation, the significant increased mean scores of knowledge about self-management, self-efficacy, and outcome expectation from dietary intake and exercise were found among the experimental group (p<0.001). The experimental group had significantly better self-management behaviors in regard to dietary intake and exercise than before the experimentation (p<0.001).

The research results revealed that the diabetes education and self-management program organized was effective in making the experimental group had better health behaviors therefore, in organizing learning activities for diabetic patients, the emphasis should be on patient-centered and the activities should be focused on the development of self-efficacy for managing health problems. Besides, supports should be provided by public health personnel and patients’ relatives in order to help diabetic patients change their health behaviors successfully.