Investigating the Effect of Diabetes Self-care Education through WhatsApp virtual messenger on the Self-care Behavior of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Semi-Experimental Study

Immediate interventions are necessary to improve self-care behaviors of diabetic patients. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of diabetes self-care education through WhatsApp virtual messenger on the self-care behavior of diabetic patients.

In this semi-experimental study that was conducted in Jiroft city in 2019, 96 patients with type 2 diabetes who met the inclusion criteria; They were selected by the randomly and divided into two intervention and control groups by simple random allocation (lottery). The educational content of self-care was sent by the researcher for 8 sessions of 60 minutes (2 sessions per week) to the intervention group on the WhatsApp virtual messenger. Summary of Diabetes Self Care Activities questionnaire was completed in two stages before and one month after the end of the intervention in both groups. SPSS version 24 software, descriptive (Mean and Standard deviation) and inferential statistics (ANCOVA) were used for data analysis.

Before and one month after the intervention, the overall score of self-care behaviors and the subscales score of diet compliance, foot care, blood sugar control and regular medication use increased significantly in the intervention group (P< 0.001); However, there was no significant change in the overall score of self-care behaviors and its subscales in the control group (P> 0.05).

Implementation of the self-care training program through social media helps to improve the self-care behaviors of diabetes patients and can be used as an effective method in preventing the adverse consequences of diabetes.