Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects
Title
Increasing Exercise for patients with Diabetes using a mobile app – A Quality Improvement Project
Access Control
Open Access
Embargo Period
4-29-2017
Degree Program
Doctor of Nursing Practice
Degree Track
Family Nurse Practioner
Year Degree Awarded
2017
Month Degree Awarded
May
Keywords
Diabetes, Exercise, MyFitnessPal, Activity
Advisor
Lisa Chiodo
DNP Project Chair
Lisa Chiodo
Abstract
Background: A literature review on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) indicates that a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise leads to overall beneficial physical and psychological health benefits for people that have a diagnosis of Diabetes. Behavior change and social support are identified as essential factors that facilitate and help maintain a productive and committed exercise program for people with Diabetes. Patient self-management is an important indicator in maintaining good control of diabetes, and mobile phone interventions have been shown to improve such self-management. Exercise is an important component of treatment, and prevention of T2DM although people struggle with incorporating exercise into their daily lives and they have difficulty maintaining exercise once they initiate an exercise goal. Method: This quality improvement project provides an educational tool for diabetes educators on benefits of the MyFitnessPal app for people that have diabetes. Additionally, it teaches educators how to download and utilize the app so they can therefore teach their patients how to track and log food and improve patient self-management. Patient weight, glycohemoglobin, (A1c) and self-rated activity levels were also analyzed at the initial visit and at one to three month follow-up appointments. Conclusion: Educators were more comfortable using MyFitnessPal app after initial education, but did not find it useful for diabetes education. It was found that exercise is an important tool for patients with diabetes to lower A1C level and weight, and the MyFitnessPal app was shown to be useful tool for patients to utilize and to meet these goals.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.