Enhancing the (cost-)effectiveness of diabetes self-management education: A comparative assessment of different educational approaches and conditions for successful implementation

The project aims to contribute to building the evidence base to increase the effectiveness of diabetes self-management education in the EU Member States, as part of a comprehensive diabetes strategy at EU level. To that effect, it will perform a systematic and comparative content analysis of the national diabetes strategies and frameworks across the 27 EU MS, establish a compendium of diabetes self-management education programs in the MS, and assess the costs of diabetes education at present on a per person basis at a national level.
To enhance the cost-effectiveness of diabetes treatment and care, it will assess and compare the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different methods for diabetes self-management education (individual and group education, IT based education, and self-help), assess the implementation fidelity of current diabetes self-management education programs, consider the moderating role of health literacy in self-management education for diabetic patients and develop and test literacy-appropriate diabetes education materials. It will also assess the conditions for effectiveness of self-management education programs in the way the health services are organised. The results will be used to inform policy decisions on improving the treatment and care for diabetic patients.