Research Articles

Quality of primary care physicians’ communication of diabetes self-management during medical encounters with persons with diabetes mellitus in a resource-poor country

O. S. Ojo, S. O. Malomo, A. O. Egunjobi, A. O.A. Jimoh, M. O. Olowere
South African Family Practice | Vol 60, No 6 : November/December| a5016 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/safp.v60i6.5016 | © 2019 O. S. Ojo, S. O. Malomo, A. O. Egunjobi, A. O.A. Jimoh, M. O. Olowere | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 30 October 2019 | Published: 30 November 2018

About the author(s)

O. S. Ojo, Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria
S. O. Malomo, Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria
A. O. Egunjobi, Sacred Heart Hospital, Abeokuta, Nigeria
A. O.A. Jimoh, Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria
M. O. Olowere, Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria

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Abstract

Background: Most of the Nigerian studies on the determinants of diabetes self-management have focused on patient-related factors. There is no previous local study that examined the quality of diabetes self-management education provided by primary care physicians to people with diabetes mellitus.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 105 primary care physicians during a workshop. The quality of diabetes self-management education provided by the physicians was assessed using a self-designed scale of 39 Likert questions derived from American Association of Diabetes Educators seven domains of diabetes self-management. Cronbach’s reliability coefficient of each domain/subscale was ≥ 0.7. The data was analysed using the independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA.
Results: Over half of the physicians provided ‘inadequate quality’ diabetes self-management education in all the domains. Physicians had the highest mean score in the ‘taking medication’ domain (4.35 ± 0.59). The mean scores in the ‘problemsolving domain’ (3.63 ± 0.74) and the ‘being active domain’ (3.57 ± 0.71) were low. The quality of diabetes self-management education provided by the physicians was not associated with any of the physician characteristics.
Conclusion: The quality of physicians’ communication of diabetes self-management was suboptimal in this study. The majority of the adequately communicated diabetes self-management behaviours were risk factors reduction related and disease-centred. Thus, training of primary care physicians on diabetes self-management education is recommended because of the key role these physicians play in diabetes management in resource-poor countries.


Keywords

diabetes self-management; patient–physician communication; primary care physicians; resource-poor countries; Nigeria

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