THE EFFECTS OF EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTIONS ON KNOWLEDGE, SELF-CARE BEHAVIORS, AND METABOLIC CONTROL IN DIABETIC ADULTS: A META-ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine whether educational interventions affect patient knowledge, self-care behaviors, and metabolic control in diabetic adults. Other variables which might influence patient outcomes, such as type of patient instruction, date of publication, type of research design, and overall quality of the research were analyzed. A rigorous literature search located 47 studies which met the inclusion criteria for this study. Meta-analytic procedures of Glass et al. (1981) and Hedges and Olkin (1985) were used for calculating effect sizes and analyzing the data.

The 236 individual effect sizes had an unweighted mean effect size of 0.91 (SD = 0.76) and a weighted mean effect size of 0.33 (SD = 0.01). When effect sizes were pooled so that each experimental group of each study was represented by only one effect size, the weighted mean effect size across studies was 0.47 (SD = 0.03). The weighted mean effect size for the studies with a control group was 0.40 (SD = 0.05), while the weighted mean effect size for studies without a control group was 0.53 (SD = 0.05). Fourteen homogeneity analyses were conducted on sub-variable constructs; the weighted mean effect size estimates for knowledge sub-variables ranged from 0.41 to 0.91, for skill performance 0.25 to 0.38, for compliance 0.24 to 1.01, and for metabolic control 0.06 to 0.84. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to determine the relationships among the study characteristics and effect size estimates. Several interesting relationships were found, such as the finding that an increased number of teaching sessions was associated with a decrease in the glycosylated hemoglobin level as a measure of metabolic control. Experimental mortality was the only variable significantly correlated with the overall weighted mean effect size (r = $-52$, p =.002).

The results of this study clearly support the notion that patient education has positive outcomes in diabetic adults. Furthermore, methodological factors, such as varying sample sizes and variances, methods of calculating effect sizes, missing data in the original reports, and threats to validity clearly influenced these findings.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-10, Section: B, page: 2923.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1987.

School code: 0227.