Diabetes is Australia's fastest growing chronic disease but there seems to be a lack of access in some areas for people with or affected by type 2 diabetes (T2DM) to attend diabetes education, vital for informed self management decision making. To address this need, a quality assured diabetes group education program (ComDiab), based on client centered, goal setting principles, was developed by Diabetes NSW. RNs (Community and Practice Nurses) were trained and assessed by Credentialled Diabetes Nurse Educators to deliver ComDiab within their community.

This study aims to assess the effect of ComDiab, delivered by certified RNs, on participant’s diabetes knowledge and self-care behaviours before, immediately after, at 3, 6 and 12 months, utilising the validated Diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire (DKQ), the pilot Summary of Self-Care Behaviours (SSCB) and the validated Self-Care Inventory-Revised (SCI-R) scales. 

53 participants were enrolled into the study with a mean age of 65.9 years (range 53-85years), 69% were female and 58% were taking diabetes medication. Preliminary findings from six months follow-up showed that 94.3% of participants improved their DKQ score immediately after and at 3 months.  At six month, 61% had increased or maintained their 3 month score. Self-care behaviour improvements (measured with SSCB and SCI-R) including dietary and physical activity habits were less obvious, for example participants who reported walking for 10 minutes daily increased from 37.5% to 50% at 3 months.

More detailed 6 months results will be presented, including areas of knowledge strength and deficit, lifestyle and diabetes related behaviour changes (diet, exercise, self-blood glucose monitoring and foot check habits).

Preliminary results of this 6 month ComDiab follow up study indicate that the majority of participants had increased or retained diabetes knowledge. However, behavioural changes are less obvious. A 12 months follow-up is underway and will reveal if changes are maintained over the longer term.