Diabetes Education for Nursing Staff in Primary Health Care

The nature of the DNP project was a staff education program for staff nurses and other clinic personnel on diabetes self-care management in a primary health care setting. The goal of this educational program was to improve and update the knowledge on self-care management of primary health care nurses. This education program followed the Walden University DNP Project Manual for Staff Education guidelines. The purpose of this continuing education of professional nurses was to improve nurses’ patient education on self-care management. After a 3-day face-to-face 90-minute lecture, improvement of knowledge was measured with a comparison of a pretest and a posttest. The project was guided by Bandura’s theoretical framework of self-efficacy. The national standard for diabetes self-management education, established by the American Diabetes Association in conjunction with the American Academy of Diabetes Educators, served as a guide in formulating a diabetes education program for staff. The 23-item Diabetes Knowledge Test 2 (DKT2) was used to measure participants’ knowledge (N = 12). Four registered nurses, five licensed vocational nurses, and three certified nursing assistants attended this education. The posttest total score on the DKT2 test (M = 20.4 points; SD = 1.98) was greater than pretest score (M = 18.1 points; SD = 1.73) supporting the conclusion that learners gained knowledge on the subject matter. This DNP staff education program has potential to affect positive social change including improved self-care management of patients with diabetes, patient satisfaction, and quality of life