Effectiveness of a Digital Application-Based Self-Care Management Program in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of educational communication intervention using SMDia software in improving knowledge, self-care activities, quality of life and glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam. Methodology: It was an intervention study with control group. Intervention study was conducted from March 2021 to May 2022 on 240 patient’s type 2 diabetes who was randomly assigned to the control group and intervention group, each group had 120 people. It was to evaluate the effectiveness of educational communication intervention using SMDia software for self-care knowledge, self-care activities, and quality of life, using the DSCKQ-30, SDSCA, and V.SF-36v2 toolkits for glycemic control by fasting blood sugar levels, HbA1c at times before and after intervention. Findings: After intervention, there was a clear improvement over time and level in the intervention group compared to the control group after 24 weeks. The self-care knowledge score in the intervention group’s 26.60 ± 2.96 points; the self-care activity score in the intervention group's 69.40 ± 9.31 points; the quality of life score for physical health in the intervention group's 73.25 ± 9.34 points; the mental health quality of life score in the intervention group's 72.74 ± 7.0 points. The intervention effect on change in self-care activities, quality of life and self-care knowledge were 167.8%, 163.6%, and 64.0%, respectively. After 24 weeks, the rates of patients with poor blood sugar control and poor HbA1c in the intervention group was 36.7% and 7.5%. The rate of blood sugar control achieved the target increased by 15.8%, HbA1c reached the target increased by 31.7%. Intervention effectiveness reached 8.2% for blood sugar control and 41.8% for HbA1c control. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: Educational communication intervention using SMDia software has shown to significantly improve self-care knowledge, self-care activities, quality of life and glycemic control for patients with type 2 diabetes.