Effects of visiting nurses' individually tailored education for low-income adult diabetic patients in Korea

Objective: To describe the effects of individually tailored education by visiting nurses for low-income adult diabetic patients.

Design and sample: This one-group pretest-posttest study included 96 newly registered low-income adult diabetic patients in a public health center in DJ-gu (similar to a county in the United States) in 2006; the patients met the selection criteria.

Measures: Diabetes knowledge, self-management, and blood glucose levels were compared before and after education.

Intervention: 15 visiting nurses delivered individually tailored education for 60-90 min/month for 7 months.

Results: After education, diabetes knowledge (p<.001) and self-management in all categories of lifestyle (p<.001), diet (p<.001), exercise (p<.001), foot care (p<.001), medication (p=.004), and insulin therapy (p=.022) significantly improved. The mean fasting blood glucose (FBG) level decreased by 14.53 mg/dl; this decrease was insignificant (p=.117). However, the relationship between education and FBG levels was significant (χ(2)=40.11, p=.005).

Conclusions: Tailored education effectively improved the patients' knowledge of diabetes and self-management. Therefore, regular, individually tailored education on a long-term basis by visiting nurses can provide essential education to low-income adult diabetic patients for maintaining self-management.