Study of Peer Education on Self-Care with an Epidemiologic Approach: A Systematic Review Study on Diabetic Patients and Some Other Diseases

Introduction: One-of-a-kind teaching methods that are effective in facilitating and improving health and creating an appropriate learning environment are peer education. Using the experiences of these people to provide an educational program to other peers who are in trouble and still have not acquired the necessary skills in the care and control of symptoms associated with the disease can be useful in adapting to disease and better control of the disease. A systematic review of the present study aimed to determine the study on peer education on self-care in patients with an epidemiologic approach.

Materials and Methods: In this systematic review, the criteria for entry of articles, including those published in Persian and in English, were the full access to their full text, published over the last 24 years, and interventional studies on the impact of education by peer on the self-care behaviors of patients. Exit criteria included case studies, descriptive and qualitative studies, as well as unnamed, unannounced and non-academic studies, as well as articles lacking the full text of the article. 

Results: In this research, which aimed to effect peer education on self-care behaviors of patients, ten articles were reviewed, one of which results showed that after 12 weeks of peer-to-peer education program, the mean scores of self-care behaviors before and after The intervention was different and in all dimensions except for foot care and drug behaviors between the two groups, there was a significant difference in the effect of peer education on self-care behaviors in diabetic patients. 

Conclusion: The study showed that the effect of peer education on the self-care behaviors of diabetic patients is significant, as well as the impact of this kind of education on the diseases that were studied in this study. This type of training can be effective in many other diseases as an effective way. 

Keywords: epidemiological approach, peer education, self-care behaviors.