The Opinion of Practice Nurses and Dietitians on Implementing Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) in Africa and the Caribbean

Several reports have shown that diabetes self-management education (DSME) assists in preventing diabetes complications. This study assessed the opinions of practice nurses and dietitians on implementing DSME in Africa and the Caribbean. A total of 1,574 practice nurses and dietitians (1,057 Caribbean, 517 Nigerians) employed in the Ministries of Health in the two populations completed the self-administered research questionnaire previously pre-tested on a cohort of student nurses. The study was conducted in 2014 and 2012 in Nigeria and Trinidad & Tobago respectively. One research assistant was engaged for each study site to facilitate the distribution and collection of completed questionnaires from the volunteers. The anonymous questionnaires were distributed to nurses and dietitians in public hospitals and health centres in the two study populations. The majority of all the 1574 participants agreed that intensification of DSME is a good idea that will be helpful to the patients (94.5%) and assist to reduce long-term diabetes complications (89.7%). However, remarkable proportions of all participants agreed that their establishments do not have enough qualified health personnel (68.4%), educational facilities (63.6%) and economic resources (61.3%) for DSME. In all, only 29% of all participants believe that their work places were prepared to implement DSME. The expressions of inadequate qualified healthcare personnel, economic resources and educational facilities for DSME in these two populations constitute significant barriers to implementing effective DSME and may well reflect the situation in the remaining developing countries. Healthcare professionals working in the developing countries should intensify lobbying towards government’s investment in human and material resources for DSME.