The effect of education based on the collaborative care model on the nutritional behaviors of family members of patients with type II diabetes

A healthy diet is one of the most important matters in caring and preventing type II diabetes in susceptible individuals. In interventional trainings performed in Iran, the family members of patients with type II diabetes are very rarely entered into training programs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of education based on the collaborative care model on nutritional behavior of families of patients with type II diabetes. This study is a single-blind randomized clinical trial undertaken in the Educational Center of Diabetes of Tabriz, Iran, in 2012. The sample consisted of 40 first-degree family members of patients with type II diabetes (one member from each family) who were randomly divided into two groups of intervention (20 individuals) and control (20 individuals). In order to evaluate nutritional behavior, the modified lifestyle questionnaire was applied. First, the two groups took the pre-test and then collaborative training was held for seven one-hour sessions for the intervention group. Collaborative training consisted of the stages of motivation, preparation, engagement, and evaluation. The two groups took the post-test 3 months after the intervention. The data were analyzed by using chi-square and Student’s independent t-test in SPSS version 13. There was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups in regards to age, gender, education level, job, marital status, and economic status. After the educational intervention, the intervention group reported better performance in comparison to the control group in items related to using fast foods (P = 0.001), fruits (P = 0.005), vegetables (P = 0.004), canned food (P = 0.003), sweets (P = 0.001), solid vegetable oil (P = 0.007), sausages (P = 0.005), the usual way of cooking food (P = 0.003) and eating heavy and late-time dinners (P = 0.007). The results showed that training based on the collaborative care model modifies the lifestyle of family members of patients with type II diabetes in most of the indices and nutritional behaviors. Based on the results, it is recommended to use the collaborative care model for nutritional training of family members of patients with type II diabetes.