Family behavior is associated with diet and exercise self-care. Diabetes educators and healthcare providers should consider involving the entire family in the management of older patients with type 2 diabetes. Interventions designed to improve diabetes self-management should address family support specific to diabetes, self-efficacy, and barriers to self-care.

We studied the effect of a bayesian pharmacokinetic dosing program on the outcome of aminoglycoside therapy in patients with clinical infections. Patients were randomized to a control (dosing based on physician choice; n = 75) or experimental group (dosing based on the bayesian program; n = 72). Both groups used serum aminoglycoside concentration data when making dosing decisions. Improved response rates were seen in the experimental (60%; 42/68) compared with the control group (48%; 36/68). A higher, but not statistically significant, incidence of toxicity was found in the control (7/75; 9.7%) versus the experimental group (4/72; 5.1%). Mean length of total hospital stay was significantly longer for patients in the control group (20.3 days) compared with the experimental group (16.0 days) (p = 0.028). The variables from multivariate analysis with a significant impact on length of stay were patient group and length of aminoglycoside therapy. On the basis of a reduced length of stay, a potential cost savings of $1311 per patient can be achieved.

In this study, culturally sensitive visual aids designed to help convey drug information to nonliterate female adults who had a prescription for a solid oral dosage form of antibiotic medications were developed and evaluated. The researchers conceptualized the educational messages while a local artist produced the visual aids. Seventy-eight female ambulatory patients were evaluated for comprehension and compliance with antibiotic prescription instructions. The study was conducted in three health centers in Cameroon, West Africa and followed a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up format for three groups: two experimental, and one control. All participants were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups, 26 patients to each group. Subjects in the experimental groups received visual aids alone or visual aids plus an Advanced Organizer. A comparison of the three groups showed that subjects in the experimental groups scored significantly higher than the control group in both the comprehension and compliance measures.

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