An Examination of Diabetes Educational Assessment Forms

Abstract

A survey was mailed to 1,518 health professionals to determine what information should be collected in an assessment of the educational needs of diabetic patients. Of the 802 respondents who returned com pleted surveys, 529 (66 percent) indicated that they were currently using an assessment form to deter mine the educational needs of their patients. Copies of 203 of these forms were collected and analyzed to determine the types of information health providers obtain from diabetes patients through the use of an assess ment form. The contents of the col lected forms were compared with the factor analysis of the results of the mailed survey. This comparison revealed a large discrepancy be tween what the total group of survey respondents considered important to assess and what was actually being assessed in the forms collected from some of the respondents. Multiple reasons may account for these results: a lack of awareness of exist ing assessment tools, a lack of skill in assessment methodology, a lack of readily available techniques which are transferable to busy practice set tings, and/or a lack of specification of program objectives.