Effects of Health Promotion Programs for Prevention New Case of Diabetes Mellitus in a Diabetes Risk Group in Singkok Sub-District, Kasetwisai District, RoiEt Province

Abstract

The purposes of this quasi-experimental research was to study the effects of health promotion programs for prevention of new cases of Diabetes Mellitus in a diabetes risk group in Singkok Sub-district, Kasetwisai District, Roi Et Province. The researcher developed a new health promotion program to prevent diabetes consisted of 5 activities which include  1) diabetes risk screening, 2) provision of knowledge and demonstration of health promotion based on 4A 3S, 3) measurement of knowledge, perceived risk and prevention behaviors, 4) exercising 3 times a week for 30 minutes, and 5) physical examination to record fasting blood sugar, waist circumference, and body mass index in a diabetes risk group of 39 persons whom were selected in purposive sampling. The risks of diabetes were the following: 1) A person with fasting blood sugar level between 100 - 125 mg/dL and have not been diagnosed with diabetes by the doctors, 2) A person with waist circumference beyond the standard range in females ≥ 80 cm and in males ≥ 90 cm., and 3) A person with a body mass index exceeding the standard in females≥ 23 kg./m.² and in males ≥ 25kg./m.². The program was used for 4 weeks. It was found that, after joining the program the diabetes risk group’s mean scores of knowledge, perceived risk, and prevention behaviors had a statistically significant increase at p<0.01. Moreover, fasting blood sugar, waist circumference and body mass index had a statistically significantly decrease at p<0.05. The suggestion from this study was that health promotion activities should be continued and should be promoted to other risk groups.