Education And Technology Play A Patient s Hba1c Levels

A scholarly literature search was conducted to determine whether education and technology play a role in a patient’s HbA1c levels. The databases that I used to search for these topics included CINAHL, PubMed, Summon, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. I started by entering words such as â€Å"diabetes self-management† and â€Å"diabetes AND technology†. I refined my search by limiting the articles to full text, published between 2011 and 2015, academic journals and English as the language. I will now present the articles to decide whether education makes a difference in the way patients with diabetes manage their care. Article one, â€Å"The effect of Educational Interventions on Glycemic Control in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus† by†¦show more content†¦The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and written informed consents were obtained from all the participants after providing them with an explanation about the study design and objectives. The study was conducted on 100 male and female adults between 40 and 75 years old who had type 2 diabetes for at least 2 years and had received a maximum of 2 oral diabetes medications. (Zibaeenezhad et al., 2012). According to the results, the mean level of HbA1c was significantly lower at the 3 month follow up compared to baseline (8.09 +/- 0.31 versus 8.51 +/- 0.26, P 0.001). In the male participants, the mean level of HbA1c was 8.59 +/- 0.26 at baseline and 8.21 +/- 0.29 at the 3-month follow-up (P 0.001). These values were respectively obtained as 8.39 +/- 0.03 and 7.94 +/- 0.04 in the female participants (P 0.001). The study results indicated a significant decrease in HbA1c levels in both male and female participants by the end of the educational course, although the duration of follow up was relatively short (three months). Another limitation was that the study only evaluated the effect of the intervention on HbA1c as a measure of glycemic control. Thus, further studies are recommended to assess clinical parameters (e.g. blood pressure and BMI). Moreover, behavioral or educational theories must have a more