The Efficacy of Diabetes Patient Education and Self-Management Education in Type 2 Diabetes

Objective: The goal of this randomized, controlled trial was to compare the 6-month efficacy of didactic diabetes patient education to a model that augmented this education with a self-management program. METHODS: Adults with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to a group that received diabetes patient education or to a group that received this education augmented by a community self-management program. Outcome measures were taken at baseline and 6 months. Analysis included pre- and 6-month-post-program paired comparison for each group; a comparison of change between groups; and an intent-to-treat comparison of change between groups. RESULTS: At baseline, there were no between-condition differences with respect to behavioural or biological outcomes or healthcare utilization. The pre-and 6-month-post-program comparison found statistically significant improvements in both groups in terms of glycated hemoglobin (A1C) and weight, and the experimental group had statistically significant improvements in 4 additional outcomes. A 12-month analysis found that baseline scores were statistically lower for both A1C and weight in the experimental group and statistically higher than baseline A1C in the control group. CONCLUSION: Augmenting diabetes patient education with a low-cost community self-management education program brought about additional improvements. Study limitations included self-selection of participants, short-term study duration and lack of comparison studies.