Diabetes peer-education on food choices part I: Development of framework

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease condition that is ravaging the populace today, including Delta State of Nigeria. Dietary habits are implicated in glycaemic control, while a strong network of peer-support has positive impact on self-management behaviour. However, neither diabetes food menu plans nor peer-support network is known to exist in Delta State public health facilities. The objective of this study includes development and evaluation purposes. First is to develop pictographs of indigenous or local foods in consideration of community needs assessment. The second is to develop a framework through which a diabetes supportnetwork could be offered peer group education on food choices. Two research designs were adopted in this study. First, a community needs assessment followed field observation approach in the development of pictographs. Second, a purposive research design was used to select volunteers living with diabetes (N=38); and structured questionnaire survey used to evaluate their daily cum weekly dietary habits. Pictographs of foods available in Nigerian local markets are produced. Overall, most of the people cook their own foods, but as much as 32% of respondents eat outside on daily basis. Assorted fruits and vegetables are available, but only 24% indicated to take fruit and/or vegetable every day, while up to 68% of participants indicate to consume less than three servings on the days that they do eat. The relevance of this work lies in dietary aspect of diabetes self-management. A novel contribution to knowledge is the development of pictographs of indigenous foods of Delta State of Nigeria. The second point highlights the proportion of community members who eat outside, hence will benefit from discussions of 'what to eat' in restaurant foods.