Department of Applied Health, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, Illinois.
Department of Primary Care and Health Systems, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, Illinois.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2020 Dec 1;44(4):587-591. doi: 10.1152/advan.00088.2020.
Diabetes, a chronic condition that impacts millions, is a complex disease. Understanding the disease can contribute to increasing awareness about this debilitating condition and preventing occurrences. Furthermore, inculcation of physiology knowledge may lead to an increased likelihood of career goals that align with this area of study. In pursuit of these goals, we set out to educate middle and high school students about diabetes. Thirty (16 high school; 14 middle school) students from a Sunday school program at an urban religious center completed a 10-question pretest as a way to measure initial knowledge about diabetes. Following completion of the survey, a 1-h education session was presented by a local physician who also brought a glucometer and insulin syringes for students to have a hands-on experience with some disease-specific tools. A posttest was administered following the presentation. The posttest consisted of 11 questions, where all but 2 questions were the same as for the pretest, measuring improvement of prior knowledge and engagement in the presentation. The overall posttest average score increased by approximately two correct responses, which was a significant improvement ( < 0.0001), suggesting that the students were motivated to and did learn diabetes concepts. This study also suggests that exposing students to educational activities related to physiology is beneficial and may lead to an increase in interest in physiology, an awareness of diabetes, and perhaps the development of healthy habits.
糖尿病是一种影响数百万人的慢性疾病，是一种复杂的疾病。了解这种疾病有助于提高对这种使人衰弱的疾病的认识，并预防其发生。此外，灌输生理学知识可能会增加与该研究领域一致的职业目标实现的可能性。为了实现这些目标，我们着手向中学生和高中生普及糖尿病知识。一个城市宗教中心的主日学校项目的 30 名学生（16 名高中生，14 名初中生）完成了 10 个问题的预测试，以衡量他们对糖尿病的初步了解。完成调查后，由当地一位医生进行了 1 小时的教育课程，他还带来了血糖仪和胰岛素注射器，让学生们亲身体验一些特定于疾病的工具。在演讲结束后进行了后测。后测包括 11 个问题，其中除了 2 个问题与前测相同，以衡量学生对先前知识的掌握程度和对演示的参与度。后测的总体平均分数增加了大约两个正确答案，这是一个显著的提高（<0.0001），表明学生有动力并且确实学习了糖尿病的概念。这项研究还表明，让学生接触与生理学相关的教育活动是有益的，可能会增加他们对生理学的兴趣、对糖尿病的认识，以及养成健康习惯的可能性。
