An analysis of the educational effects of group counseling with visual aids: efforts to prevent diabetes in a business office setting

Abstract

We made this report with a view to clarifying the effects of group counseling with visual aids for railway workers enjoying improved health conducted as a part of prevention activities for lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes. We employed the use of visual aids including slides, samples of blood and the measurement of vascular age on diabetes, and carried out group counseling to improve the interest, knowledge and realization of diabetes and lifestyle. This group counseling was carried out both with and without visual aids. A comparative study of the immediate effects mediated by the use or absence of visual aids was conducted. The workers who accepted our study and cooperated with us totaled 1054 (the average age was 43 +/- 11.2). We divided them at random into the object group and comparative control group and two months later we were able to analyze 190 people among them who could be traced and followed up. As a result of using visual aids, the workers showed much more interest and realization of diabetes and their lifestyles (p < 0.05), and a lower learning decline than the group without visual aids in retention of this knowledge. On the other hand, we have not yet seen improvement in the physical data through group counseling. It is possible that the medical examination data taken beforehand for the object group and the comparative control group were both within the normal range, or the follow-up period was short at only two months after the group counseling was conducted. We conclude that the use of visual aids could lead to a change in consciousness among workers having some confidence in their health as the result of group counseling.