English Diabetes Self-Management Program

1. Implement and evaluate in a 6-month randomized controlled evaluation an experimental self-management program for patients with type 2 diabetes. Outcomes for evaluating the intervention's impact include health status (health-related quality-of-life and metabolic control) and health care utilization. Mediating outcomes are health behaviors and self-efficacy.
2. Evaluate the same program in a one year longitudinal study using the same outcomes.
3. Disseminate the program to others in California by holding two five day workshops during which we will prepare the participants to both offer the program and to train others in their organization to offer the program.

This proposed evaluation will examine the following questions:

Hypothesis 1. People participating in the Diabetes Self-Management Program (SDSMP), when compared six months after baseline to randomized wait-list controls receiving usual care, will demonstrate:

1. Improvements in health-related quality of life (fatigue, physical discomfort, the symptoms of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, activity limitations, health distress, and self-rated health).

Improvements in metabolic measures of health status (body mass index, hemoglobin A1c, total cholesterol/HDL ratio and blood pressure). 2. Changes in utilization of health services, specifically, increases in outpatient visits to physicians and nurses, increases in the percentage of subjects having received an eye examination in the past year, increases in the number of times a health professional has examined subject's feet, and decreases in emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and hospital days. 3. Improvements in beneficial self-management behaviors (aerobic exercise, communication with physicians, diet, self-monitoring of blood glucose and self-examination of the feet). 4. Increases in perceived self-efficacy to manage diabetes.