Pharmacy Practice Faculty Publications

Evaluation of the Impact of a Diabetes Education Curriculum for School Personnel on Disease Knowledge and Confidence in Caring for Students

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2012

Journal Title

Journal of School Health

ISSN

1746-1561

Volume

82

Issue

10

First Page

449

Last Page

456

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2012.00721.x

PubMed ID

22954163

Abstract

BACKGROUND: School personnel may lack knowledge of diabetes and be unprepared to address the needs of students with type 1 diabetes. This project evaluated the effectiveness of a type 1 diabetes education program for school personnel on increasing knowledge of diabetes and confidence in caring for students with diabetes.

METHODS: Two types of diabetes education programs were created for school personnel. The basic program provided a 60-minute overview of diabetes. The expanded program, intended for volunteer health aides, provided participants with a more in-depth overview of diabetes during a 180-minute session, including demonstrations of how to assist students with insulin injections. Instruments were created to assess changes in diabetes-related knowledge and confidence in caring for students. Separate knowledge instruments were created for the basic and expanded programs. Knowledge instruments were administered before and after delivery of the education programs to both groups.Confidence instruments were administered before and after for persons completing the expanded program.

RESULTS: A total of 81 school personnel participated in the basic (N = 44) or expanded programs (N = 37). Overall knowledge regarding diabetes significantly increased in both the basic and expanded programs from baseline (p < .001). Confidence in caring for students with diabetes also increased from pretest to post test, both for overall confidence and each individual item (p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS: Educational programs offered for school personnel can lead to increased knowledge and increased confidence in caring for students with diabetes, which may assist school personnel in addressing the needs of students with diabetes.

Keywords

Diabetes education, school personnel, curriculum, diabetes mellitus type 1, faculty, health education, health knowledge, humans, Indiana, inservice training, pilot projects, program evaluation, school health services, self efficacy, volunteers

Comments

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Smith, C. T., Chen, A. M. H., Plake, K. S. and Nash, C. L. (2012), Evaluation of the Impact of a Diabetes Education Curriculum for School Personnel on Disease Knowledge and Confidence in Caring for Students. Journal of School Health, 82: 449–456. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2012.00721.x, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2012.00721.x/abstract

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