Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay

Health teaching is a valuable aspect in today’s nursing profession. Nurses play an important role in educating self-management for patients for delivering safe and accountable quality of care within the contemporary healthcare setting. A critique of an educational material was selected from the Canadian Diabetes Association brochure (2009), discussing information regarding prevention, management and guidelines for foot care for diabetics.

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This critique will incorporate components of learning and teaching styles based on the target audience, an overall critical analysis, and a reflection on further changes to the brochure on improving a diabetic lifestyle. Diabetes Mellitus is defined as a multi system disease caused by a deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas as concentrations of blood glucose are elevated. The intended audience for this educational material is well-versed for a diverse population of middle and old-aged adults along with overweight patients who are diagnosed with diabetes. A family contextual factor influenced my personal perception, a family member diagnosed with diabetes was unwillingly to perform daily foot care routines. Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay. This becomes a major impact to the health leading to ascending complications. This focus will be intended for older adults aged 65 years or older who are at a higher risk of foot ulcers. Gould (2015) discussed the high risk of chronic wound complications which involves foot ulcers to be seen superior in older adults compared to younger individuals. Erikson’s psychosocial development stage of ego integrity versus despair, proposed that a successful life will lead to the virtue of wisdom. If older adults view their life as unaccomplished or reminisce about past guilt, despair develops leading to depression. A study justifies how discovering wisdom allows revisiting from a negative resolution and restarting psychosocial outcomes. Evidence showed, older adults re-evaluating their life skills and reapplying wisdom to new situations. According to the Piaget theory, older adults are classified under the “formal operations” stage of cognitive development. The “formal operation” stage begins in the adolescent years and continues into adulthood, that being said, older adults are cognitive developed. The biologic characteristics consists on the framework of growth of the brain as ageing progresses. As the brain size diminishes from loss of neurons, cognition changes, and slower attention span transpires. Bastable (2019) elaborates on the cognitive development, older adults need more time to process and react to information. Symbol and words can be mangled up easily and confused with similar wordings, therefore short-term memory plays a role and altered time perception of health disease and complications are more determinate. There are several teaching recommendations to improve health teaching examples include slow speaking, slow pace demonstrations, reinforce repetition, concrete examples and visual images. Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay.

The nurse as educator must integrate the characteristics of an individual’s learning capability to classify their developmental stage in life. Gerogogy is a learning principle used to encounter health-related educational teaching to older individuals. Blaum, Cigolle, Boyd, Wolff, Tian, Langa, & Weir, (2010) discussed older adults older 75 have lack of insufficient information and care mechanism to assure high quality diabetes care. During placement at the Community Hospital on the obstetrics floor, a mother was concerned for her daughter who was diagnosed with measles. The mother self-diagnosed the daughter assuming it was Kawasaki disease, due to similar symptoms. A reliable medical source could have been the Canadian medical websites such as mayo clinic and the Canadian health network. Mayo clinic is a reliable resource indicating the diagnosis, signs and symptoms, when to seek a physician, complications, preventions etc. This resource complies with health on the net foundation code which is verified and trustworthy for the public of the health to seek medical information. Nursing and childhood disease journals written by registered nurses or physicians are reliable source if extra information was desired.

The Canadian Diabetes Association educational brochure on foot care highlights significant information that is appealing towards the target audience, informing prevention and management to improve the quality of life. The text construction explains the authors choice of style and the language is suitable to the intended audience in order to convey the message and the purpose addressed in the brochure. A brief summary of diabetes was noted in a short concise paragraph. There was no overload of information, thus the content provided key principles for diabetics and foot care inspections. This allows the readers to focus on one main idea before jumping to the next to avoid confusion. The layout is used to engage the audience. The sized font of the headline and subheading clearly explains what each section is entailed for the readers. There is no clutter of information squeezed onto a single page therefore, the use of bulleted points is an effective way to draw attention to identify key issues and facts. Bullets points are concise and coinvent to read. The brochure explains step by step techniques and materials needed to implement foot care every day. There are three images that all correlate with feet care. These images signify diabetic patients to inspect their feet thoroughly. The author is being informative about the topic and message being enforced. The use of fonts and typestyles are implemented to add emphasis on significant words and show an abstract design, as an example, the title “Foot care” is applied in bigger font size with color to contrast the eye. Fonts that are bolded implies a heavier appearance that must be viewed by the reader. An example, the brochure discuses diabetes foot care do’s and do not’s. Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay. The bolded do’s and do not’s are intensified to strictly explain what things are beneficial and what factors can affect the health. There are weakness in the Canadian Diabetes Association brochure that should have been highlighted inside the brochure. The author explains how serious complications can arise when not maintaining a proper cleanse of each foot or the selection of foot care. Therefore, complications and risk factors could have been added when one does not follow foot care guidelines. Nongmaithem, Bawa, Pithwa, Bhatia, Singh, & Gooptu, (2016) provides risk factors associated with poor hygiene foot care and can lead to loss of sensation, peripheral neuropathy and vascular disease, smoking and high levels of glycated hemoglobin. The imageries of diabetic foot ulcers should have been ideal to enlighten readers what the feet can look like when there are not properly taken care of. The different stages of diabetic foot ulcers would have been informative while indicating the signs and symptoms inside the brochure. The Canadian Diabetes Association brochure gathered very knowledgeable information regarding teaching and management of foot care. However, a downfall that would have been beneficial was adding a contact information. If questions and answers are implied, whom would the patients contact for further information located in the community. However, no link to a website was given.

There are various readability metrics used to assess the grade level or number of years of education acquired for an individual to fully comprehend a given context. The assigned readability critique selected was the Gunning FOG index formula. In order to solve the grade level for the Canadian Diabetes Association educational material, 100 words and seven sentences was given in the selected sample both were divided and added by 14 number of syllabus. In addition, multiplied by the constant 0. 4 to get the grade level of eleven. The grade level context is for individuals with eleven years of education in which is fairly difficult to read.

The Canadian associate brochure provides different learning and creative techniques to help comprehend the educational material by making it clearer and easier methods for foot care. This educational material outlines chronological order instructions for foot care along with supplies needed in the foot care kit. However, this is a great tool of older adults since this method can be used as a checklist for when things are accomplished or used as a reminder. The Canadian associate brochure provides a quicker way for diabetic patients to recognize the pros and cons of foot care using the learning tool known as Do’s and Don’ts. This tool for dietetic patients explains useful interventions that are effective and interventions that should be avoided to reduce ulcers occurrence or cause injury to the feet. Furthermore, a section of the brochure discusses information when diabetic patients should seek a health care provider. If a diabetic patient is experiencing corns on their feet or swelling/pain that one has never experienced, medical care is necessary immediately. Prolonging symptoms are be very dangerous towards the health of a diabetics since inquires to the foot can easily cut off circulation. Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay.

Due to psychosocial barriers in older adults, an enhancement in the Canadian association brochure can be interchanged into an audio record. This will be a prodigious learning tool for vision impaired, motor control tremors and arthritis patients. Therefore, repetition of the audio can be accessible while listening multiple times to completely grasp the context. Over the phone conversations and physician visits are an ideal method to discuss questions and any concerns regarding their diagnosis of diabetes and health management. Face to face interactions allows acknowledgment for older adults to observe the use of verbal and non-verbal body language, voice of tone and demonstrations. A sensory test for diabetics known as the Semmes-Weinstein monofilament test is used to prevent new and recurrent wounds. The Canadian diabetes association should have included instructions and anatomical landmarks to perform this test at home, due to a high risk for peripheral neuropathy.

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As a student nurse, strategies that would benefit all target ages to improve health literacy for patients would be using the teach-back method. A nurse or physician will demonstrate a task, this provides confirmation of what is learnt when applying it back before new information is given. The teach-back method is shown to improve self-care, self-efficacy and adherence throughout the healthcare setting. Evidence has indicated that this method reduces hospital readmission and improve the quality of life chronic disease patients. Another approach to improve literacy is asking opened-ended questions. This shows how attentive the patient is engaged in the conversation, therefore gaining insight on the importance of the topic. When explaining certain instructions, simple use of language and complicated medical terminology should not be vocalized. Due to this issue, misinterpretation can occur. Benjamin (2010) stated how there is a relation between low healthy literacy and poor health status. This reflects on the lack of communication specified from the clinicians in which conflicts with chronic conditions. However, cultural and linguistic is an influence that affects health literacy levels. Health literacy are beneficial to decrease disparities such like ethnical minorities and non-native English speakers.

The Canadian diabetes association provides diabetics knowledgeable evidence regarding foot care instructions that should be encouraged daily to avoid impediments towards the health. It is an eye opener how one simple task of inspecting the feet can lead to other risk factors. This critique is to evaluate how effectively information can be addressed to the intended audience by analyzing components for the readers learning and teaching ability. Critique Of An Educational Material On Care For Diabetics Essay.