The impact of diabetes education on blood glucose self-monitoring among older adults

Objectives — To determine whether attending diabetes education is associated with blood glucose self-monitoring among unselected older adults in routine clinical care.

Method — A cross-sectional population-based study was carried out on 15,190 people with diabetes aged 65-79 years. Subjects were identified using a registry of doctor-diagnosed diabetes derived from administrative data, and attendance at diabetes education centres (DECs) was determined from a separate registry of DEC utilization for 2006. Outcomes were derived using administrative data. The primary outcome was prescriptions filled for glucose self-monitoring supplies. The secondary outcomes were prescriptions for antihypertensive drugs, prescriptions for lipid-lowering drugs and eye examinations.

Results — DEC attendance was associated with glucose self-monitoring, after adjusting for baseline differences between attendees and non-attendees (adjusted odds ratio 6.45, 95% confidence interval 5.61 to 7.42). All of the secondary outcomes were also independently associated with DEC attendance.

Conclusions — This study suggests that diabetes education is associated with self-management behaviour in real-world clinical care. These findings support the effectiveness of self-management education programmes to increase self-care behaviours.