ผลของโปรแกรมเสริมพลังชุมชนต่อพฤติกรรมการรับประทานอาหารและระดับน้ำตาลในเลือดของกลุ่มเสี่ยงโรคเบาหวาน

Abstract

This quasi-experimental research aimed to compare the pre- and post-effects of a community empowerment program on food consumption behaviors and blood sugar levels among people with pre-diabetes who received standard nursing care following the guideline for diet and physical activity change (DPAC). Participants were fifty people with pre-diabetes who met the inclusion criteria and were assigned to the experimental or control group, twenty-five in each group. The experiment and data collection were conducted from February to April 2019. The instruments comprised two parts: First the instrument for collecting data, which consisted of (1) demographic characteristics questionnaire, (2) food consumption behaviors for people with pre-diabetes questionnaire, and (3) blood glucose meter and strips; and second, which has four community empowerment program for people with pre-diabetes components: (1) provision of the program, (2) seven activity plans, (3) a handbook of healthy foods for lowering diabetes risk, and (4) supportive materials. Instruments were tested for content validity by three experts. The two questionnaires were tested reliability among thirty subjects and showed good internal consistency reliability with Cronbach's alpha equal to 0.88. The demographic data were analyzed using descriptive statistic including frequency distribution, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The research hypotheses were tested using the t-test. Findings showed that the experimental group had a significantly higher Score on food consumption behavior (t=7.233, p <.001) and a significantly lower score on blood sugar (t=3.358, p<.05) than the control group. Moreover, the food consumption and blood sugar mean scores at the end of study among the experimental group were significantly higher and lower than those of mean scores before the study, respectively (t=10.840, 5.042; p<.001). Thus, the findings of this in study indicated that the community empowerment program had effective lowering blood sugar levels and improving food consumption behavior among people with pre-diabetes.