On any Saturday--a practical model for diabetes education.

Purpose: Patient self-management is an important part of treating chronic diseases. However, many primary care physicians face barriers in offering office-based diabetes education. This paper will discuss a practical program of community-based diabetes education that can be easily modified for a practitioner's office.

Procedure: Half-day diabetes education workshops geared toward local health care providers and patients with diabetes and their families were conducted in two rural communities in Arkansas. Participants were surveyed with respect to the effectiveness of the program and how they would use what they learned in the program.

Findings: Thirty-one health care providers and 59 patients with diabetes and their families attended. Program evaluation scores were between 4.1 and 5 on a 5-point Likert scale. One third of the patients commented that they had a better understanding of diet and medication use. Feedback from community health care providers noted that attendance in local diabetes support groups increased after the workshops.

Conclusions: Diabetes complications have a large impact on the health of the population and a growing economic impact on the health care industry. Although there are many barriers to diabetes education and control, a practical half-day diabetes workshop on any Saturday can be effectively developed and implemented.