Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Sue Bell

Abstract

African Americans are at high risk for type II diabetes compared to other ethnic groups due to biological, socioeconomic, and psychosocial risks. Specifically, African American adults are nearly two times more likely than White individuals to develop type II diabetes. The meaningful gap-in-practice addressed by this doctoral project was nurses’ lack of diabetes knowledge affecting their ability to provide diabetes care and diabetes self-management education (DSME) to their patients with diabetes. The clinical practice-focused question asked whether an education intervention for outpatient clinic nurses could improve their knowledge of DSME. Orem’s self-care model, Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, and Lewin’s change theory guided the project. Eighteen subjects were recruited from the outpatient care facility located in the Midwest United States. A pretest on basic diabetes knowledge using the revised diabetes knowledge tool kit was administered to the participants. Participants then attended a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation on diabetic education either in person or streamed on Zoom. Subjects were then given an informational handout on type II diabetes as a reference to use in practice. After the education, a posttest was administered. The pretest and posttest data generated by the participants (n = 18) were analyzed and showed an 18.6% gain score change in knowledge from pretest to posttest. The project promoted social change by improving the nurses’ knowledge, enabling them to treat and teach African American patients with type II diabetes effectively. Enhanced ability of patients and their families to perform self-management of diabetes is anticipated to foster optimal control of the disease and reduce the current disparities in diabetes outcomes.

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