Author

Amanda Sowell

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Committee Chair

Frances Sparti

Abstract

One-third of adults in the United States have prediabetes and 90% of those individuals are unaware they have the disease. Prediabetes is a disease where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as prediabetes. The purpose of this thesis was to identify adults at risk for prediabetes in a rural community setting, and explore the relationship between adults’ perceived risk for prediabetes and actual measured risk for prediabetes as determined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Prediabetes Screening Test. The organizing framework was based on Betty Neuman’s systems model. The participants of this study were adults, aged 18-years, or older who have never been diagnosed by a medical professional as having prediabetes or diabetes. A paired-samples t-test was used to determine the correlation between risks for prediabetes as determined an individual’s self-appraisal and risk for prediabetes as determined by the CDC’s Prediabetes Screening Test. Data analysis revealed a significant difference between self-appraised risk and measured risk for prediabetes. The participants with a prediabetes risk of high as determined by the CDC Prediabetes Screening test were analyzed as a subgroup. Within that subgroup, 55.6% of those participants had self-appraised their risk to be low, and 55.6% of participants could reduce their risk to low with weight loss and/or exercise.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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Nursing Commons

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