Abstract
PURPOSE: Approximately 13.3% of Mississippi's adult population lives with diabetes, with a higher prevalence among racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic minorities. However, there is no recorded data regarding the effectiveness of education on foot ulcer prevention provided to patients in the rural clinic network. Future studies to evaluate the effectiveness of foot care education would benefit from a racially-, ethically-, and socioeconomically-diverse education program. METHODS: This study combined verbal and visual education tools to improve the acquisition of knowledge and measure the effectiveness of knowledge the diabetic type 2 patients retained. A convenience sample of patients (N = 9) completed pre-and post-intervention questionnaires. A convenience sample of the clinic's nurses (N = 4) completed only a pre-intervention questionnaire. Data collection for this project included a 5-min formative one-on-one interview, pre- and post-test approach. The Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) 20.0 was used to analyze the transcripts from the focus group, descriptive statistics from the demographic sheet, the questionnaire, and surveys. RESULTS: Qualitative themes were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and to capture the participants' perception of their experiences. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic data and the knowledge retained. Variables were calculated using central tendency of mean, median, and mode. Satisfaction score with the education provided yielded a mean of 4.56 and standard deviation (SD) of .527. CONCLUSIONS: Detailed prospective research is required to determine if implementing education early in the patient's plan of care will improve the patient's overall health care status thus, decreasing facility costs.