No abstract

These findings suggest that PNs have deficits in the knowledge required for DSME and therefore, this must be addressed through targetting continuing professional development.

The provision of instructional strategies, which facilitate development of conditional knowledge and automaticity, is necessary for competency development in dosage calculations. Furthermore, the curriculum must incorporate authentic tasks and permit time to support competency attainment.

Purpose: Practice nurses are ideally positioned to provide key aspects of self-management education to a large majority of people with diabetes within a primary care setting. However, practice nurses have seldom had comprehensive training in this field and consequently their role may have limitations. A study was designed to determine the diabetes related knowledge levels of practice nurses in a regional/rural setting in Australia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was undertaken using a questionnaire to identify the knowledge of practice nurses. A convenience sample of PNs (N = 52) was drawn from a Division of General Practice in a regional/rural area of NSW. Data was collected using a 14 item knowledge survey from the National Association of Diabetes Centres (NADC). Results: Twenty nine PNs (55%) responded to the survey; primarily the participants were registered nurses (89.6%), only one had completed a postgraduate qualification in diabetes, although 76% had recently completed one or more short courses in diabetes management. Pathophysiology related knowledge was strong (M= 88%) as was knowledge concerning blood glucose monitoring (87%). Less strong was dietary knowledge (79.5%), although one particular question relating to sources of carbohydrate contributed to the lower score. The weakest knowledge area was medication management, with PNs scoring a mean score of only 54%. Conclusion: These findings suggest that PNs have deficits in the knowledge required for DSME and therefore, this must be addressed through targeting continuing professional development.

This paper presents a personal perspective of caring for clients with diabetes on a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. The state of Aboriginal health in Australia is explored and consideration given to Government recommendations targeting the improvement of health in the Indigenous population. For the remote area nurse at the grass roots, the application of these recommendations is not always easy. The recommendations can be both impractical and irrelevant in remote areas where resources are often less than ideal. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the dilemmas faced by health care professionals as they endeavour to make a real change to the alarming health status of the Indigenous people of Australia.