The aim of the project is to reduce or delay the incidence of severe diabetes complications in Chile by increasing access to education via the internet.
Expected impact
Web-based diabetes education programme developed
200 people with diabetes will receive internet-based diabetes education
100 people with diabetes will receive face-to-face diabetes education
Results at project completion
An internet based diabetes education platform was created at http://cursodiabetes.com/. 195 participants concluded the internet based program.
Face-to-face education material was developed and concluded by 132 participants.
Project details
All over the developing world, countries are experiencing an increase in the prevalence of diabetes. The extensive costs attributable to the disease constitute a heavy burden on already strained health budgets in the developing countries.
Macro-vascular complications of diabetes, such as heart attacks and strokes, are associated with significant socio-economic costs at individual and health care levels. As these complications are often attributable to inadequate control and management of diabetes, improvements in patients' skills to manage their disease could significantly limit human and economic costs due to diabetes.
In Chile, as well as other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, diabetes education is currently delivered face-to-face in public health clinics or by local diabetes associations. However, the impact of diabetes education in these areas is often limited due to scarcity in human resources, lack of education materials, as well as problems with people not attending their appointments due to lack of transportation.
A web-based educational diabetes programme would increase the access to diabetes education, and thus help address the problem of patient education, while at the same time reducing the costs of human and material resources.
Approach
The present project seeks to demonstrate that e-learning is at least as effective as traditional face-to-face diabetes education. A controlled intervention study will be conducted based on two groups: 1) a control group receiving diabetes education on a face-to-face basis, and 2) an experimental group receiving diabetes education via the internet.
A diabetes education internet programme will be developed in accordance with the Standards and Norms for Diabetes Education Programs for people with diabetes (DOTA). The programme will provide access to diabetes education modules designed by health care providers, self management techniques as well as anonymous web-forums, where people with diabetes can share experiences and discuss health-related issues.
The intervention group as well as the control group will be followed and measured to evaluate the outcomes of patient education. In relation with this, knowledge of diabetes, improvement in glucose control and fall in diabetes complications will be assessed.
Local health care providers will be involved in the project. Their main functions are to 1) provide conventional face-to-face diabetes education to participants in the control group; 2) insure integrity of the health information and education being communicated to the participants, and 3) communicate with participants in the intervention group via internet chat-rooms.
Once the study has been conducted and adjusted, the web-based educational diabetes programme is intended to be available to other countries.
