Diabetes education for health professionals

This course is designed to help health professionals who want to develop skills in diabetes education , you will be able to manage your educational sessions and help your patients. One approach to empower people with diabetes is by creating access, training and support for diabetes self-management education (DSME). DSME is defined as “collaborative process through which people with or at risk for diabetes gain the knowledge and skills needed to modify behavior and successfully self-manage the disease and its related conditions”. DSME has been shown to be associated with improved diabetes outcomes, reduced diabetes complications and decrease in healthcare costs. It is still a common impression that diabetes education means transfer of information/ knowledge from healthcare professionals to people with diabetes using the compliance/ adherence model. Over the past decades, it became clear that while knowledge is an essential prerequisite for self-care, knowledge alone is not enough to promote behavior change. In response to a growing body of evidence, there has been a paradigm shift from the didactic (lecture) teaching style of self-management skills to a patient centered facilitation approach that encourages empowerment and self-efficacy to promote behavior change. Behavior change is the unique outcome criterion for effective diabetes education. It is critical that the person with diabetes (and caregivers) has the knowledge, skills and behaviors needed to successfully manage the disease.