Effect of Nurse-led Telephone Follow up (Telenursing) on HbA1c among Diabetic Patients

Patient education is an essential part of treatment of diabetic people. In addition, follow up with the aim of establishing effective care in order to increase the patient's knowledge is necessary. This study was designed to measure the effect of Nurse-led Telephone Follow up (Telenursing) on HbA1c among diabetic patients. In this randomized controlled trial study, seventy diabetic patients were selected using simple random sampling method. Study instruments included a data sheet to record HbA1c and a questionnaire for demographic variables. Data were collected at baseline and 12 weeks after the intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Telephone follow up was applied for the experimental group for 3 months. Data analysis was done using SPSS and descriptive and analytic statistics (independent t-test, paired t-test, Mann-Whitaney and χ 2) were used where appropriate. The majority of patients in the two groups were female, 50-65 years old, married, had type 2 diabetes, under oral drug therapy, and were matched based on based on demographic illness variables and HbA1c rate before the intervention. After the intervention, mean rate of HbA1c in the intervention group was decreased to 1.23%: which showed a significant difference in HbA1c rate between the two groups (p=0.001). According to the results Nurse-led Telephone Follow up (Telenursing) can improve HbA1c rate in diabetic patients.