Background and Aim: Appropriate control of blood sugar delays the onset and progression of diabetes mellitus (DM) complications. Nurses have a decisive role in the education of self-care behaviors to diabetic patients, including self-monitoring of blood glucose. The current study aimed at assessing the effect of educational intervention based on continuous care model on self-monitoring of blood glucose is type 2 diabetics.

Materials and Methods: This randomized controlled clinical trial study was conducted on 86 patients with type II DM referring to the Arian Diabetes Clinic of Torbat-e-heydaryyeh in 2015. The participants were randomly divided into intervention and control groups. Educational interventions based on continuous care model that has four basic steps: orientation, sensitization, control, and evaluation, was done on the intervention group for 3 months during 6 sessions. A reasearcher-designed questionnaire was completed before the intervention and two weeks after the last training session and the average scores of self-monitoring of blood glucose in both groups were evaluated. Finally, the obtained data was fed into SPSS software (V: 16) and analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistical tests including Chi-square, paired T, independent t-tests P<0.05 was taken as the significant level.

Results: Out of the total participants 59.3 percent were females; and their mean age was 48.6±8.4 years. Results showed significant difference between the two groups in terms of self-monitoring of blood glucose before and after the educational intervention based on continuous care model (P<0.001). It was found that mean and standard deviation of self-monitoring blood glucose in the intervention group before and after the intervention were 11.51±3.02 and 12.13±2.96, and 18.13±3.93 and 13.25±3.74; respectively.

Conclusion: The results showed that educational intervention based on continuous care model is effective on self-care behaviors of diabetic patients, especially their self-monitoring of blood glucose, therefore, applying it, is recommended.