Comparative Effects of Educational Intervention Program On Self-Efficacy of Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in South-East, Nigeria

Background: Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic disease, which requires a level of confidence among the sufferers in its management. Objective This study investigated the effect of an educational intervention program on self-efficacy (SE) in diabetes individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus in South-East, Nigeria. Method The study was a quasi-experimental controlled study, comprising 382 individuals with type 2 DM selected and assigned to Intervention (IG) and Control Groups(CG). The instrument for data collection was the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Efficacy Scale (SCDS). Pretest data were collected, and thereafter education on diabetes management was given to the IG group. The IG was followed up for six months. At the end of six months, post-test data were collected using the same instrument. Data were analyzed using Pearson Chi-square test statistics. A p-value less than 0.05alpha level was considered significant. Result More than 25% of all study participants had low self-efficacy in most domains of self-efficacy before intervention. Participants in IG and CG were similarly spread across all self-efficacy domains before intervention except in the social recreation domain where the IG had a significantly, good proportion of participants with low self-efficacy (χ 2  = 11.743, p = 0.003). Conclusion The study outcome after 6-months of intervention shows that a significant proportion of participants in IG moved from low to either moderate or high SE in almost all the SE domains (p ˂ 0.05), thus showing the effectiveness of education on the IG.