The effectiveness of self-management education with type 2 diabetes patients in Saudi Arabia: systematic literature review

Background: Although there has been significant improvement in both understanding and treating type 2 diabetes, there is no indication of a decrease in its prevalence. This trend has led to an hypothesis that are still risk factors that have not been fully understood and dealt with and patient need effective treatment programs to help them deal with such. For along time, medical experts have emphasized the need for diabetic patients to exercise lifestyle changes such as dieting and engaging in physical exercise in order to maintain their conditions. Objectives: Self-care is increasingly becoming an important for diabetic patient seeking to manage their conditions. Consequently, this study is geared towards evaluating the efficiency level of self-care programs among type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients in Saudi Arabia. It will also describe the self-care programs’ effects on the outcome of disease and patients’ quality of life, and the importance of associated educational programs. Methods: This is a systematic review of published studies exploring the quality of self-care management, as well as its effect on promoting quality of life among T2D patients in Saudi Arabia. This review revealed 11 published papers which included Prospective cohort study, uncontrolled quasi-experimental intervention study with pre–post assessment, non experimental retrospective cross sectional survey, naturalistic observation, case control study, and qualitative interview. Results: The results from this review indicated that a significant percentage of T2D patients do not observe, or are selective with the type of self-care management they use. This habit leads to reduced quality of life, prolonged stay at the hospital, and extended recuperation period. The reviews indicated that educational programs have promoted self-care management among T2D patients. An educational program promotes self-care management among T2D patients and provides additional training for healthcare to facilitate and encourage self-care activity among the patients to minimize the growing number of T2D patients.