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 low- and middle-income countries.Macro-vascular complications of diabetes, such as heart attacks and strokes, are associated with significant socio-economic costs at the individual and healthcare 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 of human resources, lack of educational materials, and problems with people not attending their appointments due to lack of transportation.A web-based educational diabetes program would increase 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.The project aims to reduce or delay the incidence of severe diabetes complications in Chile by increasing access to education via the Internet.
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 face-to-face and 2) an experimental group receiving diabetes education via the Internet.A diabetes education internet program will be developed following the Standards and Norms for Diabetes Education Programs for people with diabetes (DOTA). The program will provide access to diabetes education modules designed by healthcare providers, self-management techniques, and 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. Concerning this, knowledge of diabetes, improvement in glucose control, and the reduction in diabetes complications will be assessed.Local healthcare providers will be involved in the project. Their main functions are to:Provide conventional face-to-face diabetes education to participants in the control group.Ensure the integrity of the health information and education being communicated to the participants.Communicate with participants in the intervention group via Internet chat rooms.Once the study has been conducted and adjusted, the web-based educational diabetes program will be available to other countries.
- 195 Participants concluded the internet-based program. - 132 Participants concluded the face-to-face education program.