JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disease that requires long-term management, including behavioral changes in self-care to prevent complications. Health education is an essential strategy for improving self-care among T2DM patients. However, there remains variability in the educational approaches used and their effectiveness in enhancing patient adherence to self-care practices.

Objective:

This study aims to explore and analyze various forms of health education that influence improving self-care behaviors in T2DM patients.

Methods:

This study employs a scoping review approach with five main stages: (1) formulating research questions, (2) searching for relevant studies, (3) screening and selecting suitable research, (4) mapping the data, and (5) thematic analysis and summarizing the findings. The process follows the PRISMA-P protocol and evaluation using the PRISMA checklist. The literature analyzed comes from international journals in the PubMed, ProQuest, and Scopus databases. The criteria include full-text articles, English language, and publication dates between 2015 and 2024, focusing on diabetes-related subjects. Inclusion and exclusion criteria follow the PCC model. A total of 26 articles were analyzed in this study.

Results:

This scoping review identifies various forms of health education that influence improving self-care behaviors in T2DM patients. From the 26 studies analyzed, it was found that digital technology-based interventions, such as mobile applications, telehealth, and video-based education, demonstrated significant improvements in self-care behaviors. Additionally, personalized, face-to-face education enhances patient understanding and adherence in the short term but requires reinforcement through follow-up interventions to sustain its benefits. Although these interventions were adequate, the main challenges identified were the heterogeneity of study designs, the relatively short duration of interventions, and sample size limitations, which may affect the generalizability of the research findings. Overall, technology-based health education shows excellent potential for supporting long-term disease management.

Conclusions:

Technology-based health education approaches effectively improve self-care behaviors in T2DM patients. These findings can serve as a foundation for developing more optimal health education strategies.