Type 2 diabetic patients attending a nurse educator have improved metabolic control

To investigate if routine education by nurses is associated with improved metabolic control in type 2 diabetic (DM2) outpatients, we randomly selected 143 patients (81 women), not using insulin, at the Endocrine or Internal Medicine clinics, to be interviewed and submitted to a clinical and laboratory evaluation. Age was 59.1 ± 10.1 years; duration of DM2 7.5 ± 6.3 years; BMI 29.7 ± 5.2 kg/m2. Patients were grouped according to HbA1c (<7.0% or ≥7.0%). Age, gender, DM2 duration, BMI, and lipid profile were not different. Patients with HbA1c ≥ 7.0% (n = 49) were more likely to be taking oral agents, and to be treated by internists rather than endocrinologists (P = 0.04). Nurse education was associated with a greater proportion of patients with HbA1c < 7.0%, especially among those attending the Internal Medicine clinic. In logistic regression, education by nurses remained associated to HbA1c < 7.0% (OR: 3.29, P = 0.005), after controlling for use of oral agents (OR 0.067, P = 0.01), attending the Endocrine clinic (OR 4.11, P = 0.002), self-reported adherence to diet (“yes” or “no”), known DM duration, and instruction level (NS). Nurse education contributes significantly and independently for better metabolic control in DM2 outpatients in a teaching hospital.