The Diabetes Care and Education Provided by Nurses Working in Physicians' Offices

Abstract

This paper describes the diabetes care and education provided to 290 diabetic patients by 47 nurses working in primary care physi cians' offices in two Michigan communities. The study utilized data from questionnaires and logbooks of patient contacts kept by the 47 nurses. The study demonstrated that nurses could play an important role in caring for persons with diabetes, but in dicated that office nurses were constrained from delivering optimal care by lack of time, resources, and diabetes-related continuing education. Since the majority of patients with diabetes receive their ongoing diabetes care and education in primary care physicians' offices, and since nurses, as a profession, can and should play a major role in the overall care of these patients, a national effort to improve the quality of patient education provided by this very large group ofhealth professionals is indi cated. The diabetes patient education provided by office nurses should supplement, but not replace, the comprehensive diabetes patient education provided by programs that meet national standards.