After receiving language concordant, individual health education interventions, do Spanish speaking, diabetic inpatients at a safety net hospital demonstrate acquired diabetes self-management competency as measured by pre-training and post training evaluation of key, diabetes self-management knowledge?

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to assess the quality of the inpatient, health education diabetes program as it relates to primary Spanish speaking patients. Complications from diabetes account for huge personal and financial costs. There is substantial evidence supporting the use of targeted diabetes education to reduce complications but we need to know if our education interventions are valid. In order to accomplish this by auditing the knowledge of a sample of inpatient diabetics before and after receiving the standard MMC Spanish language diabetes education interventions via Spanish language pre and post surveys (standardized by the previously validated SKILLD survey). Demographic and clinical data were analyzed and all significant data (p value <0.05) were considered for their importance. The data demonstrated that in all 10 items on the survey, overall patients were able to demonstrate significant improvement in survey scores. Additionally, comparisons of demographic data demonstrated that being less than 50 years old was associated with improved survey scores. This indicates overall benefit of the training program as well as possible insight into need for more aggressive training for patients greater than 50 years in age.