Nurses’ Role in Diabetes Care; A review

Abstract

The prevalence of diabetes is rising in tandem with the increase in the population growth rate and urbanization all over the world. Learning how to deal with the disease and keeping the blood glucose within suitable levels have become the greatest challenge for diabetics, pointing out the importance of patient education as a self-empowerment treatment modality necessary for improving the quality of life in these patients. The vast majority of diabetics believe their physicians are exclusively responsible for educating them in this regard; the role of non-physician health-care providers, however, has gained increasing acceptance in different parts of the world during the past 25 years. Many believe nurses should fulfil a leading role in diabetes treatment and care education as existing clinical and observational clinical trials have shown nurses to be capable of providing an effective quality care at lower costs. Drawing upon the expertise of nurses in providing care for diseases such as diabetes in different clinical, social and educational units, benefiting from nurses in the education programs can reduce not only the number of unnecessary referrals to specialists but also the heavy burden of such visits impose to the society. Policy makers, therefore, are urged to focus more attention on the referral system in different levels of health-care system.

 
Keywords: Nurses' role, Diabetes care, Education, Self-care