Patient and family engagement in culturally-tailored diabetes self-management education in a Hispanic community.
Denise J Deverts, Margaret F Zupa, Edith C Kieffer and 8 others
PMID 39854891WHAT IT FOUND
In culturally tailored diabetes education, patients were more likely to engage when their A1C was ≥9% and diabetes was a current priority.
Family supporters who attended with patients were more likely to engage. This describes participation, not diabetes control.
Key findings
01Of 222 patients, 135 met the engagement criterion of attending at least 4 of 6 DSME sessions.
02Engaged patients were more likely to have baseline A1C ≥9%, live apart from their support person, and report diabetes as a current priority.
03In FAM-ACT, 78% of engaged patients had engaged support persons, versus 6% of not engaged patients.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used one urban clinic, so the people enrolled may not resemble other Hispanic diabetes populations. The report describes attendance and enrollment, not blood sugar, complications, or quality of life. The analysis did not use hypothesis testing as the main method, so small differences may be chance. Support persons were required for enrollment, which may exclude patients without a willing supporter. Pandemic changes mixed in-person, online, and phone sessions, so it is hard to separate the effect of program format. Data on people who did not enroll were limited to medical records.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that culturally tailored DSME improves diabetes control or that adding family support causes better outcomes. The paper reports enrollment and session attendance, not clinical outcomes, and it did not test whether either program changed A1C.