Patients with type 2 diabetes who participate in group education programs to manage their disease show measurable improvement and require less medication, according to a systematic review of current evidence.
Group-based education resulted in improved diabetes control as reflected by blood glucose levels and patients’ knowledge of diabetes. Evidence also suggested that participants in diabetes group education programs may reduce their blood pressure and body weight and increase self-empowerment, quality of life, self-management skills and treatment satisfaction.
Patient management programs, however, are not routinely used to treat people with diabetes.
Trudi Deakin, Ph.D, of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendlae primary care trust and a diabetes research dietician at Burnley General Hospital in England, led a team that reviewed 11 studies involving 1,532 patients with type 2 diabetes to assess the effects of group-based (six or more participants) patient-centered diabetes training in both the short (four to six months) and long term (12 to 14 months). The researchers also assessed the effects of training on clinical, lifestyle and psychosocial outcomes.
“The … review shows that group education for diabetes mellitus works and should move forward, especially because it’s cost-effective. The results should encourage more research in this area,” Deakin says.
The review appears in the most recent issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease characterized by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both, and can lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney disease, limb amputations and premature death.
The disease is associated with physical inactivity, older age, obesity, family history of diabetes and is more prevalent in African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, American Indians, and some Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.
Patients can minimize the effects of diabetes by taking medication and also by making lifestyle changes such as improving their diet and getting exercise which lower blood glucose levels, control blood pressure, and improve cholesterol levels. Studies have shown that such lifestyle changes can delay or prevent the onset of diabetes in patients who are high risk. However, getting patients to comply with treatment recommendations has been a longstanding challenge for health-care practitioners.
According to the World Health Organization, about 3.2 million deaths every year are attributable to diabetes complications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of 2002, 18.2 million people in the United States had diabetes, with 1.3 million new U.S. cases are diagnosed each year.