Exploring the efficacy of an applied diabetes numeracy intervention in a South African type 1 diabetic child population.

[摘要] Numeracy skills are vital for a child with diabetes as they need to be able to manage theirdiabetes effectively, in order to protect one from the complications that come with diabetes.There have been numerous studies that illustrate the poor numeracy skills in children withdiabetes. A numeracy intervention specifically related to diabetes was put into place toillustrate whether or not such an intervention is effective in improving a child’s diabeticnumeracy ability, which will lead to the improvement of diabetes self-management in thefuture.A Quantitative quasi-experimental pre-test - post-test non equivalent control group designwas conducted to explore the efficacy of an applied numeracy intervention in a South Africatype 1 diabetic child population. The study group comprised of 58 children with type 1diabetes, each group consisted of 29 participants, and each participant in the experimentalgroup was closely matched according to their level of formal education, grade, age and sex toa research participant in the control group. Both groups were measured before and after theintervention.The children were between the ages of 8 and 13. All participants were in formal educationbetween Grades 3 and Grade 8. Results revealed that participants in both groups had lower'functional’ grades as compared to their 'actual grade’ level which suggests that theyperformed below their expected grade level. Participants performed better in areas assessingbasic mathematical skills than areas which assessed applied diabetes mathematical skills. Theintervention was shown to be effective as analyses revealed that there was a highly significantdifference (p<0.001) between the Pre and Post Test (applied mathematical sections) of theexperimental group which took part in the intervention.This research is only the starting point for the assessment of the effectiveness of a numeracycomponent in diabetes related education in South Africa, and through this one would hopethat more research in South Africa will be done in this area.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand