Nurses’ knowledge of contents of diabetes patient education in Ondo – state, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Diabetes patient education is central to achieving active participation in management of diabetes. This participation is critical to quality and quantity of life among diabetic patients. However, observations show uncontrolled and complicated diabetes; noncompliance with the treatment regimen traceable to poor transfer of knowledge. The study was designed to assess nurses’ knowledge of diabetes patient education in government hospitals in Ondo State.

Method: The survey consisted of Four hundred and one registered randomly selected nurses working in various units of the selected hospitals. The instrument was a validated, self administered 44 – item questionnaire developed by the researchers using the professional prompter worksheet for diabetes education and content areas of diabetes education. The questionnaire focused on four content areas of diabetes education- nutrition, exercise and activity, glucose monitoring, and foot and skin care.

Result: The result showed that the respondents were majorly females (82.3%). Seventy two percent of the respondents had between 1year and 5years of work experience. Only 8.2% had 1^st degree. Respondents demonstrated poor know-
ledge in the specified content areas of diabetes patients’ education. Good knowledge of nutrition was only 29.2% while that of exercise/activity was 24.9% of respondents. For glucose monitoring, only 24.9% had good knowledge while that of hygiene/foot care was 34.4% of the respondents. The mean scores for the content areas were nutrition: 5115; exercise/activity: 5014; glucose monitoring: 5014 and foot and skin care: 5316 respectively. Respondents with one to five years work experience performed better than those with longer years of experience in the selected content areas.

Conclusion: In view of this result, it is recommended that definitive modules for educating diabetes patient be deve-
loped for each health institution and more emphasis placed on continuing education of nurses to update their knowledge about current Diabetes management.