What do I eat? Impact of an interactive teaching method for improving pharmacy students' diabetes nutrition knowledge and comfort in providing nutrition counseling

Abstract

Background and purpose: Didactic approaches for instructing students about diabetes nutrition and self-management have been described previously in the pharmacy education literature. There is a need for diabetes nutrition active learning approaches that can be incorporated into the advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) setting so students can apply previous didactic learning in a real world setting. The goal was to add to students' knowledge of diabetes nutrition thereby increasing their comfort in discussing nutrition with patients.

Educational activity and setting: The nutrition tour activity was implemented in the APPE setting and involved pharmacy students on ambulatory and inpatient rotations. The nutrition tour included several active learning exercises such as evaluation of nutrition labels and development of a day-long carbohydrate-consistent meal plan to encourage student engagement and application of information. Student pre- and post-activity survey data was collected two weeks before and two weeks after the tour to assess retention of knowledge of diabetes nutrition and comfort in diabetes nutrition education. Changes in knowledge and comfort were assessed using t-tests.

Findings: Fifty-five pharmacy students participated in the nutrition tour with 45 completing the pre-activity survey and 40 completing the post-activity survey. Comparison of student pre- and post-activity survey scores identified statistically significant increases in both total nutrition knowledge (p < 0.001) and student comfort in counseling on diabetes nutrition (p < 0.001).

Discussion and summary: A diabetes nutrition tour guided by a pharmacy preceptor for APPE students was associated with increased diabetes nutrition knowledge and comfort in educating on diabetes nutrition.

Keywords: APPE; Diabetes; Education; Experiential; Nutrition; Pharmacy.