Vanderbilt University's Diabetes Research and Training Center Prevention and Control Division

The Prevention and Control Division at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, works closely with Meharry Medical College, Fisk University, Tennessee State University, the county hospital, the local and state health departments, the NAACP, local churches, and concerned citizens to reduce and in time eliminate local racial disparities in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The work is funded through a CDC REACH 2010 project grant plus other federal and foundation grants. Collaborations designed to reduce disparities involve assessments of community eating behaviors, lifestyles, attitudes toward disease and the health care system, and standards of care. A variety of questionnaires, videos, training materials, and slide presentations related to these efforts are available.

The Vanderbilt University DRTC has a long history of research on improving the teaching skills of health professionals involved in diabetes education and management. The center's widely attended Effective Patient Teaching (EPT) course emphasizes teaching, promoting adherence, and imparting problem-solving skills. By special arrangement with the Vanderbilt University DRTC, professionals can be trained to present the EPT program to colleagues in their own institutions.

The center also offers the program Sugar Is Not a Poison: The Dietitian's New Role in Diabetes Management to prepare dietitians for their expanded role in diabetes management. The program has been presented throughout the United States. The curriculum emphasizes skills needed for modern diabetes management, therefore the course is useful for all dietitians who work with people with diabetes.

Other training materials available from the Vanderbilt University DRTC include manuals on interviewing, teaching, and problem-solving and brief videotapes for problem-based patient learning.

The DRTC staff have also developed

• Questionnaires for evaluating the reactions of adults and adolescents with diabetes in situations that challenge adherence to their meal plans and coping strategies.



• The Personal Diabetes Questionnaire (PDQ), a web-based assessment of situations that make patient adherence to self-management recommendations difficult.



• The Self-Monitoring Analysis System (SMAS), a software package for microanalysis of eating behavior.



• Psychological Assessment Applications Generator (PAAG), a software package for developing, administering, scoring, and interpreting psychological tests.



• Assessment tools and teaching aids for promoting diabetes detection, treatment, and prevention in African-American communities.



• Primary Care Management of Diabetes Mellitus, a set of 178 PowerPoint slides for use in teaching health professionals about diabetes. A comprehensive content outline on diabetes, the slide series may be downloaded from the VDRTC's Internet site.

Contact Steve Davis, M.D. (Director, Prevention/Control and Clincal Research Component), David Schlundt, Ph.D. (Behavioral Health Disparities Core), or James Pichert, Ph.D. (Clinical Outcomes and Behavioral Sciences Core) for information about programs and materials available from the Prevention and Control component of the Vanderbilt University DRTC.

source: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/drtc/index.htm