Comparison of the Effect of Peer Education and Self-learning Module on Self-Care of Patients with Type II Diabetes

Diabetes is a health challenge worldwide. Self-care activities are one of the effective ways to control this disease and its complications. In this study, the effect of the peer method and self-learning module on patients' self-care was investigated.

In this semi-experimental study, 60 patients with type 2 diabetes who were referred to a diabetes clinic in Zabol, Iran, were included. Patients were randomly divided into two groups by tossing a coin. Patients in the peer group participated in 6 sessions of 30-45 min long. This intervention was implemented for the peer group in one month (2 sessions per week). Self-learning packages were also provided to the patients in the module group. In the module group, at the same time as the peer group training sessions, the corresponding module (the module related to the same topic as the peer group training session) was provided to the patients to study it. To ensure the validity of the study, the researcher made telephone calls to the patients. In addition, the researcher conducted telephone follow-ups to remind the treatment plan to both peer education and self-learning module groups. The self-care score of the patients was checked before and 12 weeks after the intervention.

The self-care score of patients in the peer group (P<0.001) and self-learning module group (P<0.001) increased significantly. The patients in the peer group had a significantly higher self-care score than the patients in the self-learning module group (P=0.019).

The present study showed that the two self-learning methods, peer and module, effectively improved patients' self-care. This effect was higher in the peer group since, in the peer-oriented education method, patients learn from the experiences of their peers with the same conditions and diseases. Consequently, this can lead to an improvement in the adaptation of patients to their disease conditions, ultimately leading to disease control and the reduction of its complications.