In 2017, type 2 diabetes mellitus was the ranked fourth in the top ten causes of death in Taiwan. The major complications of diabetes mellitus include retinopathy, nephropathy and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Community-based program, including physical exercise, low carbohydrate diet and medicine compliance for diabetes self- management, may decrease the mortality and delay mellitus complication in the population.
Objective:
The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of community-based intervention group program for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Methods:
A quasi-experiment design was adopted with a pretest-posttest single group. Twenty-four clients with type 2 diabetes mellitus joined the service program from the Health Service Center in Beitou District, Taipei City as research participants. This service program involved group intervention activities of 120-180minutes per session once a week for five weeks. The group activities included physical exercise, resistance training, and low carbohydrate diet education, as well as medication education. The intervention strategies included didactic instruction, role-playing game, board game, dietary records (homework), group discussion, and sharing experience of successful cases, to ameliorate clients’ self-management of sugar control in daily live.
Results:
The means for blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride had decreased and reached the statistically significance, from 128.00 mg／dL ± 27.29 to 119.78mg／dL ±31.47 (P<.05), from 181.00 mg/dl ±29.81 to 175.00mg/dl ±25.43 (P<.000), and from 129.43 mg/dl ±70.40 to 117.39mg/dl ±50.46 (P<.000), respectively. In the self-management part, the behaviors of “the blood sugar record habit”, “blood sugar check in daily live”, ” diet according to diabetes mellitus diet principles at least four days weekly” significantly increased. The clients considered the program helpful in their health concept, daily health practice, and self-confidence.
Conclusion:
The study showed that community-based intervention group program for diabetes self- management could effectively improve blood glucose control of people with diabetes mellitus. A regularly held, group learning, multi-activities, experiential-teaching program in community for people with diabetes mellitus would be suggested.