Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the information culture of people living with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and how that impacts their self-management practices in Ghana. The study focuses on the information experiences and information cultural patterns and creates awareness of the need for people to be aware of effective information management for sustainable self-management support.

Design/methodology/approach

An interpretive qualitative approach was used. A total of 12 interviewees involving 10 diabetes patients and 2 health professionals provided data for the study. Allowing the participants to freely talk about their attitude and behaviour, defining their experiences around information for their self-management was the best approach to achieve an in-depth understanding this study seeks.

Findings

The specific elements defining the information of people living with DM in Ghana can be identified. People living with the condition are willing to share information about their condition not only with those within their diabetic community but also with anyone interested. They prefer to use information from sources they find reliable and trust, and they have good information-related competencies that are consistent with diabetic patients in other countries’ contexts to help them identify, access, use and share relevant information. Only a few of the interviewees have difficulty in evaluating the accuracy and currency of some of the information. But they receive a lot of support from experienced people from their community. People also prefer to have information about the condition in their ethnic language. It is important for people living with the condition in Ghana to get involved in the diabetic groups, clubs and community, as members appear to receive the most benefit and support from the community to self-manage the condition alone.

Research limitations/implications

The study is limited by the number of participants and the distances between the researchers and the research context. Also, even though two groups of participants were interviewed (diabetic patients and health professionals), the analysis did not separate the responses of the different groups of study participants. This paper provides a useful insight and understanding of the culture of people living with diabetes in Ghana in terms of how they access, use and share the information they need to support their self-management. It will create awareness of the importance of being mindful of information culture patterns in people in other groups in Ghana and beyond. The research processes and procedures described in the paper can be replicated by other researchers in other contexts.

Originality/value

Although there have been a lot of studies about diabetes and people living with the condition in Ghana, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study looking at how people define their need for information, how they identify the source of the information and how they access and use the information, including their general behavioural patterns that influence these information experiences.

中文翻译：

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了解加纳糖尿病患者自我管理支持的信息文化

目的

本研究的目的是探索糖尿病 (DM) 患者的信息文化，以及这如何影响他们在加纳的自我管理实践。该研究侧重于信息体验和信息文化模式，并使人们意识到需要了解有效的信息管理以获得可持续的自我管理支持。

设计/方法/途径

使用了解释性定性方法。共有 12 名受访者（包括 10 名糖尿病患者和 2 名卫生专业人员）为该研究提供了数据。允许参与者自由谈论他们的态度和行为，定义他们围绕信息进行自我管理的经验是实现本研究寻求的深入理解的最佳方法。

发现

可以确定定义加纳 DM 患者信息的具体元素。患有这种疾病的人不仅愿意与糖尿病社区内的人分享有关他们病情的信息，也愿意与任何感兴趣的人分享。他们更愿意使用来自他们认为可靠和信任的来源的信息，并且他们具有与其他国家背景下的糖尿病患者一致的良好信息相关能力，以帮助他们识别、访问、使用和共享相关信息。只有少数受访者难以评估某些信息的准确性和时效性。但是他们从社区中有经验的人那里得到了很多支持。人们也更喜欢用他们的民族语言获得有关病情的信息。

研究局限性/影响

该研究受到参与者数量以及研究人员与研究背景之间距离的限制。此外，即使采访了两组参与者（糖尿病患者和卫生专业人员），分析也没有区分不同研究参与者组的反应。本文从加纳糖尿病患者如何获取、使用和共享支持其自我管理所需的信息的方式，提供了对加纳糖尿病患者文化的有用见解和理解。它将提高人们对加纳及其他地区其他群体的人们注意信息文化模式的重要性的认识。本文中描述的研究过程和程序可以由其他研究人员在其他情况下复制。

原创性/价值

尽管在加纳有很多关于糖尿病和糖尿病患者的研究，但据作者所知，这是第一项研究人们如何定义他们对信息的需求，他们如何确定信息来源信息以及他们如何访问和使用信息，包括影响这些信息体验的一般行为模式。