The Use of Social Media in Diabetes Education

Abstract Millions of people in America have diabetes and this disease is a growing concern nationally. Education can be used as a tool to decrease the instance of diabetes and increase diabetes self-management. The primary care site selected for the project offers an in-house diabetes education program with a participation rate of about 17%. Through offering an alternative to a traditional classroom education the goal is to educate more diabetics. A group of 50 diabetic patients were given the opportunity to complete free online diabetes education modules through Joslin.org. The self-guided modules were scheduled to be completed over an 8-week period. Participants completed a diabetes empowerment survey (DES-SF) prior to the first module and at eight weeks completion. The purpose of the DES-SF was to obtain a baseline of the participants' perception of their diabetes self-management ability. To keep participants on track with module completion they received weekly module completion reminders through the primary care provider patient portals. Participant's responses to pre and post DES-SF survey and pre and post Hemoglobin A1C were compared to evaluate for improvement at the completion of the project. Results from the review revealed , all participants decreased their Hemoglobin A1C and surveys showed an increase in the perception of diabetes self-management without increased cost to patients or providers