Intensive Diabetes Education Programs Lower A1c’s

A diabetes education program significantly improved long-term blood-sugar control among patients. The program taught low-income, poorly educated people with diabetes to better manage their disease. Researchers divided 56 participants into two groups, providing one group with an intensive problem-solving course that spanned more than nine sessions and covered standard diabetes self-management and care, as well as ways to manage financial, social, resource and interpersonal issues related to the disease. The latter received a condensed two-session version of the program. Three months after the end of the program, participants in the intensive group saw their hemoglobin A1c levels fall by an average of 0.7, compared with their levels before the start of the program. Participants in the two-session group, however, did not see any improvement. With this novel approach, we have found a way to give people the skills to solve problems in all areas of their lives so that they can take diabetes off the back burner and start caring for their health,” said Felicia Hill-Briggs, an associate professor in the general internal medicine division at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. Journal of General Internal Medicine, April 2011