A pilot study: the development of a culturally tailored Malaysian Diabetes Education Module (MY-DEMO) based on the Health Belief Model.
BACKGROUND
Diabetes education and self-care remains the cornerstone of diabetes management. There are many structured diabetes modules available in the United Kingdom, Europe and United States of America. Contrastingly, few structured and validated diabetes modules are available in Malaysia. This pilot study aims to develop and validate diabetes education material suitable and tailored for a multicultural society like Malaysia.


METHODS
The theoretical framework of this module was founded from the Health Belief Model (HBM). The participants were assessed using 6-item pre- and post-test questionnaires that measured some of the known HBM constructs namely cues to action, perceived severity and perceived benefit. Data was analysed using PASW Statistics 18.0.


RESULTS
The pre- and post-test questionnaires were administered to 88 participants (31 males). In general, there was a significant increase in the total score in post-test (97.34 ± 6.13%) compared to pre-test (92.80 ± 12.83%) (p < 0.05) and a significant increase in excellent score (>85%) at post-test (84.1%) compared to pre-test (70.5%) (p < 0.05). There was an improvement in post-test score in 4 of 6 items tested. The remaining 2 items which measured the perceived severity and cues to action had poorer post-test score.


CONCLUSIONS
The preliminary results from this pilot study suggest contextualised content material embedded within MY DEMO maybe suitable for integration with the existing diabetes education programmes. This was the first known validated diabetes education programme available in the Malay language.
Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, Bandar Sunway, 47500 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. badariah.ahmad@monash.edu.
Badariah
B
Ahmad
Amutha
A
Ramadas
Quek
Q
Kia Fatt
Anuar Zaini
AZ
Md Zain
D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006266:Health Education; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D010465:Perception; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011379:Prognosis; D012648:Self Care / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires