Assessing patients' knowledge about their diabetes : CA Eigenmann, et al. Development and...

COMMENTARY

156 Pract Diab Int May 2011 Vol. 28 No. 4

Defining diabetes education depends on who is educat-ing whom about what, why, how and when, in relation both to the individuals involved and their circumstances. How to evaluate the outcome of an educational intervention may be frustrating for boththe educator and the educated. Dividing the outcomeareas into the four domains of knowledge and under-standing, self-management, self-determination, andpsychological adjustment – as in the Original Article byCecile Eigenmann and colleagues – may help in theevaluation. This paper explains some of the practical issues behind developing a Diabetes KnowledgeQuestionnaire (DKQ) for use in the evaluation of theoutcome of an educational intervention intended toimprove, or perhaps just assess, knowledge and under-standing as the authors define it.

The practical messages start with just how difficult itis to do even by a group of experienced, knowledge-able, and committed professionals. Secondly, questionswill remain about how specific this questionnaire is inmeasuring the knowledge of the individual or groupbeing assessed at that particular time. Just what aboutdiabetes knowledge is being tested by the 12 commonquestions, applicable to people with diabetes on dietonly, or tablets, or insulin, and is it enough to have onlytwo more specific questions for those on tablets, andone for type 1 diabetes patients? Thirdly, as is acknowl-edged by the authors, this tool will not necessarily beapplicable globally having been developed on one continent, albeit using evidence-based guidelinesderived from the international peer reviewed literature.Finally, why assess knowledge and understanding at all when we know that possessing the appropriateknowledge may not lead to any behaviour change, letalone what may be deemed by the educator as the correct one!

The authors themselves give two answers: that‘knowledge is the confident understanding of a subject,potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose’ (perhaps a new self-management skill); andassessing knowledge is a ‘prerequisite for informedhealth decision making’ (perhaps empowerment for alifestyle change). The DKQ is a step forward in theassessment of knowledge in diabetes education forpatient and professional.

Dr Andrew Brooks, Consultant Physician (Diabetes and Endocrinology), Royal HampshireCounty Hospital, Winchester, UK

Assessing patients’knowledge abouttheir diabetesCA Eigenmann, et al. Development and validation of adiabetes knowledge questionnaire. Pages 166–170.

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