Living with diabetes: a student experience to enhance knowledge and assess attitudes

Grant:

Instructional Development Fund (IDF)

Academic Year:

2012 - 2013 (June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013)

Funding Requested:

$500.00

Project Dates:

Thu, 03/14/2013 - Sat, 08/31/2013

Applicant(s):

bfreelan

clfenske

debprice

Overview of the Project:

Diabetes prevalence has been increasing rapidly in the United States and worldwide. It is estimated that more than 26 million Americans are affected. This chronic disease when uncontrolled can lead to devastating complications and costs billions in health care dollars. For those living with diabetes, the disease requires continuous self-management, touching every aspect of life. Students will encounter people with diabetes in every clinical setting as well as their personal life and throughout their career. Having an understanding of living with chronic disease through the life cycle is imperative. Our aim is to provide students with a ‘lived experience' of diabetes in addition to the standard didactic content. They will take on a persona of a person with diabetes and practice self-management skills within the confines of a simulated environment. Faculty will provide sample challenges via text messaging to simulate various situations encountered by someone living with diabetes, for example: challenges with food intake, medications, and fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Students will be asked to problem solve the situation as if they were living with diabetes. There will be no actual use of medication or injection of any kind. Students will journal about their experiences and will be tested pre and post experience about diabetes knowledge and attitudes using previously validated tests.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

To evaluate a teaching methodology with undergraduate nursing students and to determine if those participating in experiencial learning through a 'lived experience' have increase in knowledge and difference in attitude toward diabetes than those who do not.

Project Achievements:

We did find a significant change in both knowledge and attitude scores in the right direction after this teaching methodology/project. Students expressed appreciation for being exposed to the details of managing diabetes on a daily basis and the impact it would have on one's life. We have discuss how the diabetes experience could be used for other chronic diseases and could be incorporated in multiple levels of course work. Unfortunately, we found a drop in knowledge when we re-tested the seniors who had the 'lived experience' as juniors.

Continuation:

We did continue past the original stop date in order to include more students. The last group was completed in the spring semester of 2014. We may also administer a post test in the fall of 2014 to measure retuention between junior and senior experience.

Dissemination:

We are hoping to publish 2-3 manuscripts from this study. The first is under way now and we are awaiting final data analysis.

Advice to your Colleagues:

This required committment on instructor's part for texting students 24/7. Students in the experience group were challenged but enjoyed the new level of engagement.

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