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Taking Diabetes Self-Management Education to the Next Level

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

When I started working for the Diabetes Control Program (DCP) in Maine almost 30 years ago, there were only three outpatient education programs in the state. Maine had one of the first state diabetes control programs that was funded by the Centers for Disease Control. The goal of the DCP was to make diabetes self-management education (DSME) programs available throughout the state. When I left Maine 3 years later, there were 36 DSME programs all using the same curriculum, which was designed by a statewide task force of nurses and dietitians.¹ That program continues today.

Many widely held assumptions about diabetes education at the time were, in retrospect, naive. For example, most health professionals assumed that content expertise was all that was required to be an effective diabetes educator. Because I was trained as an educational psychologist, I realized that there was more to being a successful diabetes educator than knowing about diabetes. Being a successful diabetes educator also requires educational and counseling skills related to, but separate from, diabetes content expertise. It is gratifying to see that this fact is now widely recognized by diabetes educators. ²

Another assumption prevalent in those early years was that providing patients with the knowledge needed to take care of their diabetes would result in better self-management and glucose control. That assumption seemed so obvious at that time that . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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