Nursing and Diabetes Management

¶ … gather the outcome data is a mix of self-reporting on the part of the patients with respect to their ability to follow the guidelines and training provided, and testing on the physical outcomes. The testing will be done by the participating medical practitioners in this survey. This is consistent with the need to have some hard data that can be measured in a consistent manner. Statistics with respect to patient blood sugar levels and other health indicators are commonly used to gauge the health of the patients.

With something like Type II diabetes, a patient that effectively manages his/her disease may not see any noticeable deterioration in health over a six-month time period, which would allow for the measurement to accurately test what impact this education and training has on patient outcomes. Self-reporting is the only reasonable way for the participants to explain the degree to which they followed the training program. It would be too costly to monitor the patient all of the time, so self-reporting allows for effective feedback.

There is a risk that patients will demonstrate some sort of bias in reporting, but that is a known risk and can be accounted for when the responses are subject to analysis by the professionals. Evaluating Objectives In some respects, over the course of a six-month study there are a number of different variables that could potentially affect the patient outcomes, so it is difficult to tell precisely whether or not the patient outcomes relate directly to the education and training that will be provided over this period.

In that sense, the outcomes of the study cannot be considered perfectly accurate -- there is no way to control for all of the potential variables. But it is possible that with enough respondents the results will be enough to be significant, overwhelming the influence of other variables, as those will vary from one patient to another, and the education/training as part of this study will be the only constant.

Further, there will be a control group to show whether there is a difference in aggregate outcomes between the control group and the tested group. Through these means, some conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of the program that is being tested (D'Agostino, 1995). How to Measure Data will be gathered from the start of the program to the termination of the program an in interval duration of six months. The information will be recorded in spreadsheets and then analyzed via regression analysis.

The Diabetic Bio Data will be collected using a laboratory data log sheet detailing Bio data from the base year to the termination of the period. This is a standard method of gathering health outcome information, so is very much applicable here. There will also be questionnaires used to collect bio data. A laboratory with test kits for Diabetes Bio Vials will be used to help gather the information. A survey will also help to collect patients' responses on quality of life.

These will be given once at the beginning of the study and once at the end of the study. Participants will be coached with respect to giving useful information that only strictly relates to the questions about their perceived effectiveness. This will hopefully help to reduce some of the bias that can enter into responses to this type of questionnaire with self-evaluation. Strategies to Take if Outcomes do not Produce Positive Results The entire point of the scientific method is to derive accurate results.

Thus, it does not matter whether or not the results are "positive" -- we will not fudge the data to show that they are. If the results are not positive, and the null hypothesis is rejected, then the role for the researchers is to examine the data and attempt to determine what elements in their approach would need to be trained. It is for this reason that the feedback form needs to include questions about what might have gone wrong, or what the subjects thought might go better.

That way, the surveys can provide valuable insight for the researchers to make changes to their next study to ensure that their techniques for training people to managing their Type II diabetes are more successful -- this has to be a learning experience no matter whether or not the current strategy for educating patients proves to be effective. Implications for Practice This paper tests one of the theories with respect to helping people to self-manage their diabetes.

If the approach proves to be successful, then that has significant implications for research, to the extent that the.