Effect of an in-patient education programme upon the knowledge, behaviour and glycaemic control of insulin dependent...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of a diabetes education programme (5 days in hospital) in type I diabetic patients by comparing their diabetes-related knowledge, behaviour and the level of HbA1 before with that 6 months and 1 year after the teaching session. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to whether they answered a questionnaire after 6 months (group I; 41 "responder" patients) or not (group II; 38 "non-responder" patients). Their usual regime of insulin therapy (2 daily injections of a mixture of regular and intermediate-acting insulins) was not modified during their hospitalization for teaching; the total daily doses of insulin and the percentages of regular insulin were comparable before and after the teaching session. In group I, we observed an improvement in knowledge and behaviour indices (evaluated by a written questionnaire) from 69 +/- 3 and 67 +/- 4% (mean +/- SEM) before the teaching session to 86 +/- 2 and 85 +/- 2% 6 months after, respectively (p less than 0.001). HbA1 decreased from 12.1 +/- 0.3% to 11.2 +/- 0.3% (p less than 0.05) and to 10.7 +/- 0.4% (p less than 0.025) after 6 and 12 months respectively. This improvement was observed in patients with or without residual insulin secretion. In group II patients, the index of knowledge increased similarly from 67 +/- 4 to 85 +/- 2% (p less than 0.001). No significant decrease of HbA1 was observed in this group after 6 and 12 months, however whether the patients possessed residual insulin secretion or not.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)