Summary of Teaching Plan
Diabetes is a topic that has been widely mentioned in the teaching of health studies. I felt obliged to educate the community on this topic after a close relative of mine died from diabetes due to lack of knowledge and awareness. In my opinion, this topic was personal and a way of relieving the burden I have always had about no one being able to share information with my family member about diabetes. In a 30 minutes session at Mount Sinai Diabetes Centre, I was able to discuss about the different nature of diabetes their causes, symptoms and ways of preventing and reducing the risk of occurrence. The main objective of teaching the topic was to educate on the ways of diagnosing and preventing diabetes. The target audience for the session was adults including those living with diabetes and those that were not diagnosed but needed testing.
The use of drawing and charts presentations assisted me in delivering the message to the group and with the help of the staff from the Centre; we managed to conduct an exercise that educated individual on how to measure blood sugar level. To facilitate with the learning, I utilized different materials including insulin, syringes, blood sugar level meters, and the teaching pamphlet. Additionally, individuals who had not been tested went through free tests with the help of the institution facilities and staff. Unfortunately due to the various discussions incorporate in the lesson, the time set of 30 minutes was exceeded by an extra 10 minutes to ensure that everything that I had planned to teach in that lesson was delivered. In evaluating the audience, I asked them questions before the exercise to measure the blood sugar level began relating to the content I taught.
The topic of diabetes was very personal, seeing how attentive the audience was sparked some mixed emotion in me, and this made me want to continue speaking even when the time was up. The audience was very eager to learn and their facial expression and comments at the end of the lesson showed that teaching the lesson was a good idea. The ability to teach and know that the audience understood it was overwhelming. I felt like I could make this a culture to educate the community about various illness to ensure that health and self-care are promoted and visions of health are achieved.
Epidemiological Rationale for Topic
Diabetes has become a worldwide epidemic with continued increase in cases of diabetes arising which are associated with lifestyle. The saddest thing about diabetes according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is that it is preventable but people choose not to be healthy. According to IDF, if the unhealthy lifestyle trend continues more than 640 million people across the world will be living with diabetes (Ryan, 2015). This implies the death rate of people with diabetes would increase threatening the population and growth of several nations. In the Unites States only, 10% to 15% of deaths recorded annually are caused by diabetes. Statistics indicated that 29.1 million (9.3%) of the population in America were living with Diabetes as at 2012. Out of the 29.1 million, 1.25 million adults and children had diabetes type 1 and 8.1 million were undiagnosed cases (American Diabetes Association, 2016). With the rising cases of diabetes, it is only logical to find solutions to ensure that they reduce and one such way is through educating the community.
The American Diabetes Association (2016) sites that one of reasons cases of diabetes continue to increase especially among children is lack of awareness about the symptoms. Most of the diabetes symptoms are associated with different illness and sometimes people use over the counter medicine to treat symptoms such as headache, which could be diabetic-related (Greenburg, 2011). Several complications that are caused by diabetes affect the health of individuals. Promoting a better lifestyle amongst the community would help reduce cases of diabetes. It would also imply that obesity, which is closely related with the disease, would reduce. The implications of diabetes are severe to a country because it leads to children missing school and adult missing work because of illness. Further, the disease raises the medical bill of families affected and although insurance assists, it creates an economic burden to the family and the government.
The first step to controlling diabetes is through diagnosis. However, most individuals living with the disease are undiagnosed. The purpose of this lesson was to sensitize the community on the importance of regular checkup and screening for diabetes. Identifying cases of diabetes would help improve health of individuals diagnosed and reduce the death rates, which are part of the objectives defined in the HP2020 in relation to diabetes. The purpose of the lesson was to challenge individuals living unhealthy lifestyle to change because of the high risk they face of getting either type 1 or type of diabetes. Every nation including America aspires to have a community that leads a healthy lifestyle to reduce cases of illnesses and budgets associated with them. As such, educating the community was a step toward avoiding a calamity as described by IDF in the statistics expected in 2040 (Ryan, 2015).
Evaluation of teaching experience
I have never participated in any other community teaching activity and the experience was good and worthwhile. Being a very shy person, talking in front of large crowds has always been a challenge. Therefore, I am glad I was able to stand in front of an audience of about 150 people to educate them on a topic that I could relate to it. The audience was very attentive and most of them took some notes while explained to them the different types of diabetes and their causes. Their facial expression showed that every point I made was understood. Additionally, the community including the staff asked several questions. This showed that they were eager to get all the facts and relevant information relating to diabetes.
Being in the room with the audience helped me feel that I had achieved something positive in my nursing career. The discussions undertake amongst the audience made me feel proud to be able to share knowledge and information that would assist in ensuring that America achieved its goals of promoting health and reducing cases of diabetes. I was able to teach people who had diabetes on way of measuring their sugar level and when to use insulin. To be able to facilitate the activities also showed the excitement the audience had on the topic. They seemed to be interested and when I relayed the statistics to them, they were very shocked and most of them felt the need to feed properly. At one point, an individual even asked me to mention the various food they could avoid ensuring they could reduce the risk of getting diabetes. This question made me happy because it affirmed to me that my goal of teaching the lesson was achieved.
Despite the good experience I had in teaching the group, several challenges arose that need to be considered. The room selected to conduct the class was very small considering the number that showed up. Some of the staff had to attend to the class while standing for the class because of lack of space and sits. This affected the concentration of most of the staff and at some point; most of those that were standing had to leave because they were tired. This factor needs to be considered while teaching the community. The classroom should be able to accommodate a large group because most individual want to come and gain knowledge from such lessons. Additionally, the materials I carried were also inadequate but mainly because I had not prepare a budget on how to conduct the class. The blood sugar level meters were few and this delayed the class because they had to share and take turn during the activities sessions. The discussions also prolonged and took up most of the time. In teaching through interaction, the facilitator should only allow few discussions to ensure that the time set is not exceeded.
Community response to teaching
After educating the community, the Diabetes Centre indicated that the number of people they receive who wanted to be screened and checked for diabetes had increase notably. This was a positive thing because most people wanted to find out whether they had diabetes and a few did turn out to have it. The Centre also noted that individual that were overweigh from around the community had enrolled in a program that they facilitate to ensure that people lose weight with the bid to have a healthy life. Additionally, the level of insulin the institute had issued had increase implying that more people were being diagnosed with diabetes and embarking on medication to ensure that they control the disease and prolong their lives.
In addition, I have received several email from the people who attended the session thanking me for the information I was able to share with them on diabetes. One person has been in constant communication with me after they decided to change their eating habits. This person weighed over 220 pounds and even though she was not found to have diabetes, they were at a high risk of getting it. My lesson helped her make the decision of becoming a better person regarding her lifestyle. This shows that at least I helped make one person healthier that day I taught the lesson and this make me feel proud and appreciate that I was able to do it. I asked the staff to evaluate my teaching and they gave positive statistics. The support of the staff to ensure that the community was free from diabetes and learn ways to live with the disease was overwhelming. According to the staff, several patients who had diabetes and attended the session were not missing their medication as they did before. They had also noted that they did not come in regularly to the clinic because they failed to monitor their sugar levels. Evidently, the staffs indicate that having the session helped most of the patients in the institution to take their medication seriously.
Areas of strengths and areas of improvement
References
American Diabetes Association. (2016). Statistics about Diabetes: Data from the National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2014 (released June 10, 2014). Retrieved from http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/?loc=superfooter#sthash.vQP2Xc4v.dpuf
Greenburg, R. (2011). Diabetes Do's and How To's: Small Yet Powerful Steps to Take Charge, Eat Right, Get Fit, and Stay Positive. New York: SPI Management LLC.
Ryan, L. (2015, December 1). America has the HIGHEST rate of diabetes in the developing world - while the UK, Australia, and Lithuania are among those nations with the lowest rates of the condition. Daily Mail. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3341773/America-HIGHEST-rate-diabetes-developing-world-UK-Australia-Lithuania-nations-lowest-rates-condition.html#ixzz40DG7XRWK
