Abstract
BackgroundHealthcare professionals’ person-centered communication skills are pivotal for successful group-based diabetes education. However, healthcare professionals are often insufficiently equipped to facilitate person-centeredness and many have never received post-graduate training. Currently, assessing professionals’ skills in conducting group-based, person-centered diabetes education primarily focus on experts measuring and coding skills on various scales. However, learner-centered approaches such as adequate self-reflective tools have been shown to emphasize professional autonomy and promote engagement. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of a self-assessment tool to identify healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas in need of professional development to aid effective facilitation of group-based, person-centered diabetes education.MethodsThe study entails of two components: 1) Field observations of five different educational settings including 49 persons with diabetes and 13 healthcare professionals, followed by interviews with 5 healthcare professionals and 28 persons with type 2 diabetes. 2) One professional development workshop involving 14 healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals were asked to assess their person-centered communication skills using a self-assessment tool based on challenges and skills related to four educator roles: Embracer, Facilitator, Translator, and Initiator. Data were analyzed by hermeneutic analysis. Theories derived from theoretical model ‘The Health Education Juggler’ and techniques from ‘Motivational Interviewing in Groups’ were used as a framework to analyze data. Subsequently, the analysis from the field notes and interview transcript were compared with healthcare professionals’ self-assessments of strengths and areas in need to effectively facilitate group-based, person-centered diabetes education.ResultsHealthcare professionals self-assessed the Translator and the Embracer to be the two most skilled roles whereas the Facilitator and the Initiator were identified to be the most challenged roles. Self-assessments corresponded to observations of professional skills in educational programs and were confirmed in the interviews.ConclusionHealthcare professionals self-assessed the same professional skills as observed in practice. Thus, a tool to self-assess professional skills in facilitating group-based diabetes education seems to be useful as a starting point to promote self-reflections and identification of healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas of need of professional development.
Highlights
Healthcare professionals’ person-centered communication skills are pivotal for successful group-based diabetes education
The qualitative study was conducted between March 2015 and October 2016. It entailed two components: 1) field observations of healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) from five educational programs in the Greater Copenhagen area of Denmark, followed by interviews with program participants with T2DM and HCPs; and 2) using insights gained from the field observations and interviews, a professional development workshop for HCPs was conducted focusing on self-assessments of skills required to deliver groupbased, person-centered diabetes education
We used a tool to self-assess professional skills based on the theoretical model ‘The Health Education Juggler’ [10] and techniques from Motivational Interviewing (MI) in Groups [23]to delineate the essential elements of facilitating high-quality group-based, person-centered diabetes education (Fig. 1)
Summary
Healthcare professionals’ person-centered communication skills are pivotal for successful group-based diabetes education. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of a self-assessment tool to identify healthcare professionals’ strengths and areas in need of professional development to aid effective facilitation of group-based, person-centered diabetes education. Evidence suggests that healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) person-centered communication skills are pivotal for successful self-management in individuals with T2DM [4]. Most person-centered approaches have been developed for use by HCPs conducting individual consultations, group-based diabetes education is a commonly used self-management approach because it brings people with T2DM together to share experiences and is optimally cost-effective [5,6,7,8,9]. We define professional skills as the ability to perform high-quality group-based, person-centered diabetes education in practice.
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