The Effect of Stage-Matched Educational Intervention on Behavior Change and Glycemic Control in Elderly Patients with Diabetes

Objective: Diabetes is a chronic and common global dis-ease that requires particular care behaviors for the rest of life. People with diabetes can be trained to achieve optimal self-care. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of stage-matched educational intervention on behavior change and glycemic control in elderly patients with diabetes.Matherials and methods: In this controlled clinical trial, 110 type 2 elderly patients with diabetes were selected randomly from health centers in Malard city, Iran, and were assigned to the control and experimen-tal group equally. Data collection instruments were: demographics questions, scales to assess transtheo-retical model constructs and stage of change, and blood samples for determining FBS and HbA1c. The mentioned variables were measured before, 1, and 3 months after the stage-matched educational inter-vention. The educational intervention consisted of 2 group intensive training sessions of about 45 minutes and daily messages via mobile phone for 3 months. The educational topics were about healthy diet and caring behaviors. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and independent & paired t-test, chi-square, one-way ANOVA, and ANCOVA. The significance level was con- sidered less than 0.05. Results: The mean age of study participants was (66.5 +/- 3.91) years. Also, the average duration of diabetes was (7.18 +/- 4.21) years, and 50% had a Junior high school education. A significant decrease was found in mean FBS (from 187 +/- 43.4 to 136.42 +/- 36.34, p < 0.05) and HbA1c (from 8.28 +/- 1.26 to 7.26 +/- +/- 1.10, p < 0.05) in the experimental group, and also the mean of self-care behaviors in the experimental group increased significantly from baseline (from 1.51 +/- +/- 1.71 to 1.45 +/- 0.92, p < 0.05).Conclusions: Educational intervention based on the stages-of-change model can improve glycemic control and behaviors related to controlling diabetes, so it is necessary to pay attention to essential psychological variables in designing educational interventions in or-der to control blood glucose in patients with diabetes.(Clin Diabetol 2022, 11; 4: 232-238)