Project Title: “Family Support and Healthy Eating in African Americans with Type 2 Diabetes”
Mentor: Jie Hu, Nursing
2 thoughts on “Yang Du – Nursing”
Very important work. Good presentation. I wonder how we might be able to encourage families to participate more in dietary self-management of Type II diabetics.
When I was interviewing patients, I found out that there are different personal needs regarding self-management. The support towards patient and family should be individualized ideally.
Some people need more assistance in terms of healthy eating and prefer their family to be more engaged in their care. For those patients, adequate education on T2DM should be provided to family as well (handbook, group sessions- so they can communicate with other family who are dealing with T2DM as well, workshops on grocery shopping trips, cooking sessions, or even some resources that they can use to help them afford healthy food – discounts). It is every hard for all family members to change their diet; The problem that I found in my interview is that a lot family members who love to support their loved ones do not know how – thus, education on T2DM self-management for family can make a change here. The amount of support provided to every patient will be different – some may change the diet of the whole family while some might just provide different food for patient; some may still eat sweets in front of patient but have a basic understanding that patient should not be encouraged to eat sweets freely (many patients reported that sometimes it is hard for them to say no to their family member when he/she is provided with some sweets) while some may chose not to eat sweets in front of patients at all. So based on different situation, there should be different plans.
For some patients who reported that they would prefer to manage on their own or had a bad experience with their family involving in care and prefer not to involve any family members, adequate social support should be considered – group, workshops, cooking lessons with other T2DM patients, etc. In this way, they can still have a support system.
We want to encourage family to involve in the care and support patient (positively).
Very important work. Good presentation. I wonder how we might be able to encourage families to participate more in dietary self-management of Type II diabetics.
Hi Dr. Tate, Thank you for your comment!
When I was interviewing patients, I found out that there are different personal needs regarding self-management. The support towards patient and family should be individualized ideally.
Some people need more assistance in terms of healthy eating and prefer their family to be more engaged in their care. For those patients, adequate education on T2DM should be provided to family as well (handbook, group sessions- so they can communicate with other family who are dealing with T2DM as well, workshops on grocery shopping trips, cooking sessions, or even some resources that they can use to help them afford healthy food – discounts). It is every hard for all family members to change their diet; The problem that I found in my interview is that a lot family members who love to support their loved ones do not know how – thus, education on T2DM self-management for family can make a change here. The amount of support provided to every patient will be different – some may change the diet of the whole family while some might just provide different food for patient; some may still eat sweets in front of patient but have a basic understanding that patient should not be encouraged to eat sweets freely (many patients reported that sometimes it is hard for them to say no to their family member when he/she is provided with some sweets) while some may chose not to eat sweets in front of patients at all. So based on different situation, there should be different plans.
For some patients who reported that they would prefer to manage on their own or had a bad experience with their family involving in care and prefer not to involve any family members, adequate social support should be considered – group, workshops, cooking lessons with other T2DM patients, etc. In this way, they can still have a support system.
We want to encourage family to involve in the care and support patient (positively).