Diabetes education: whose priorities are met?

Two hundred Type 2 diabetic patients newly referred to the diabetes centre at a large university teaching hospital were studied over an 8-month period. Patients completed a diabetes knowledge questionnaire, and specified their educational priorities by selecting six diabetes-related topics from a list of 14. After giving 1 h of individual education and using the same list, the educators selected six topics which they considered to be most important for that particular patient to know. Choice of educational priorities differed between the patients and the corresponding educator (p less than 0.001). In only 38% of cases did the educators' first three priorities coincide with those of the patients. The major discrepancies were in the selection of 'sick day management' and 'complications', especially favoured by patients, as against 'oral hypoglycaemic agents' and other therapy-related topics, especially favoured by educators. Diabetes knowledge was a determinant of educational priority for patients (p less than 0.001) but not educators. In contrast, only the educators' overall choices were affected by duration of diabetes (p less than 0.001). Diabetes treatment type influenced both patients' and educators' selection of priorities (p less than 0.001). We conclude that an educational strategy which relies on health professionals' perceptions to determine what diabetic patients need to know may be inadequate.