Poster Presentations (Group II)

The goal of this community-based health literacy-focused study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational diabetes intervention to enhance knowledge and modify attitudes, self-care practices and service utilization among Spanish-speaking Latinos with type-2 diabetes. The ultimate goal of the project is to contribute to finding solutions to the disproportionate disease burden that Latinos with diabetes mellitus experience— a major source of health disparities. The study design is a randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of “La historia de Rosa,” an educational tool specifically designed for Spanish-speaking low health literacy diabetes patients. “La Historia de Rosa” consists of three audio-CDs in Spanish with an accompanying patient booklet and a provider manual to educate patients and their families about basic aspects of diabetes, prevention, and management. This innovative teaching tool uses short, first-person stories to convey the most important messages in diabetes diagnosis, prevention, blood glucose control, nutrition, medications and exercise.  Participants are randomized to four groups: (1) Standard diabetes educational intervention in a community setting (N=100); (2) Standard diabetes educational intervention plus health literacy component using “La Historia de Rosa” in a community setting (N=100); (3) Standard diabetes educational intervention in a clinical setting-group approach (N=100); (4) Standard diabetes educational intervention plus health literacy component using “La Historia de Rosa” in a clinical setting (N=100). Participants’ knowledge and experiences with diabetes are assessed at baseline, at 3 months after joining the educational intervention, and 6-month post-exposure to educational intervention. Initial findings indicate that, at baseline, most participants reported problems controlling their diabetes, adhering to their diet regimens, and managing their diabetes. A third of participants reported not knowing how to read and write and overall participants’ health literacy scores fell within the very low range. Pre-intervention diabetes knowledge was lower compared to the percentage of correct answers immediately after participation in the educational session. Analyses of 3-month follow-up interview data revealed significant recall of the information presented during educational intervention. One of the greatest challenges faced during the implementation of the study was the administration of baseline and post-intervention surveys due to participants’ very low literacy levels. The use of standardized questionnaires specifically designed for individuals with low-literacy individuals helped addressing this challenge. Findings from this study indicate that “La Historia de Rosa” appears to be a practical, efficient and adaptable intervention that can be easily replicated and implemented in both clinical and community-based settings.