Mahsa Malek and F. Pınar Çakıroglu
Prevention of occurrence or development of diabetes complications by providing a good metabolic control could only be achieved through diabetic patients’ training. The aim of the study is to determine the effects of nutritional education of patients with type-2 diabetes on nutritional knowledge and consumption habits. The study is a descriptive research and is composed of 2 groups and 4 stages carried out to determine the effects of planned education of type-2 diabetes patients on their alimentary knowledge. Patients were divided into two groups, experiment (10 individuals) and control (10 individuals) groups. Nutritional education was given to the experiment group and not applied to the other group. In order to determine the nutritional knowledge, 20 questions related to the matter were presented to patients. “Individual nutrition consumption method” was used to determine the nutrition consumption. For the nutrition consumption analysis, daily energy and nutrition components were determined by using computer software “NUTRITIONIST II. At the end of nutritional education, significant differences were detected in experiment groups regarding nutritional knowledge level (p<0.001), energy intake (F(1,19)= 6.033, p<0.05), protein intake (F(1,19) =10.568, p<0.05), CHO intake (F(1,19)=7.437, p<0.05), and fat intake (F(1,19)=3.821, p<0.05). In addition, an increase was detected in sediment intake with education (initial measurement 14.03±8.06g, last measurement 19.49±6.35g).In order to control diabetes, eating habits should be regulated through nutritional education, and this should be adopted as a life style which will increase the life quality. Obtained results indicate that education was effective.
