Program

Physician Assistant M.S.

Number of Pages

43

Year Approved

2022

First Advisor

Klein , Alicia

Second Reader

Ranelle Kirchner;

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is a multisystemic disease that affects more than 370 million people worldwide and costs the U.S. Healthcare System over $245 billion per year (Kahn et al., 2013; Powers et al., 2015). Current diabetes education serves as a beneficial intervention method in the prevention and limitation of disease complications. Nevertheless, the current education regimen does not adequately convey the physiological reasoning behind those recommendations. Creating an educational tool that provides patients with physiological reasoning behind diabetes and treatment methods was needed to improve diabetes understanding. Neighborhood HealthSource expressed a need for easily understandable and accessible pathophysiology-based T2DM education materials that patients can utilize during their clinic visits (R. Kirchner, personal communication, January 12, 2022). An electronic pamphlet to fulfill this need was created and incorporates patient-friendly information on the disease pathophysiology, complication pathophysiology, risk factors, and diabetes-related terminology. This project served to alleviate a gap in patient understanding by providing a resource that emphasized patient understanding of the pathophysiology behind diabetes diagnoses. Neighborhood HealthSource found the pamphlet to be beneficial and expressed that there appeared to be a better overall initial patient understanding regarding their T2DM diagnosis (Appendix B). The project’s basis, design and implementation was successful.

Degree Name

Masters of Science in Physician Assistant

Document Type

Masterʼs thesis

Terms of Use and License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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