Final Year Nursing Students at a Community Project on Diabetic Foot Care and Diet Control

A community project on diabetic foot care and diet control was successfully conducted on 20 August 2022 at Ti-Ratana Residence, Salak South. The project was organised by Radha Maniam, Programme Director of IMU’s Nursing programme and led by students from Cohort NU1/18 as part of their MPU4 activity, supervised by Siti Hajar, and with collaboration among the nursing faculty, and faculty from the Community Medicine, Family and Population Health, and Nutrition & Dietetics Department.

This project is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being. A total of 15 residents with diabetes attended the session.

The targeted objectives of the activities are as follows:

To enhance knowledge and skills in diabetic foot care and early detection of diabetic foot complications among the residents and care givers

To provide knowledge and skills in diabetic foot care and early prevention of diabetic foot complications among the elderly

Two final year students from the Bachelor of Nursing (Hons) programme, Rachel Netto and Elaine Ngu, joined this event as part of their MPU4 Social Responsibility module. They carried out foot assessment as well as health teaching on diabetic foot care. They successfully produced a bilingual video on foot care, which was used as a tool during the health teaching session. This experience helped them to understand how health promotion as well as health education and counselling on diabetic foot care can be carried out. This event provided them the opportunity to enhance their soft skills on communication, leadership and management. In addition to that, the experience also increased their awareness on the needs of welfare residents while engaging with the residents.

Dr Lee Ching Li, a dietician from Nutrition and Dietetics Department, conducted a talk on diet control for diabetics. She was assisted by Goh Lay Khim, who acted as the translator as majority of the residence were more conversant in Mandarin. The talk was very educational and received very good response from the residents. The project not only helped the residents to gain awareness and knowledge in diabetic foot care and diet control, but it also promotes inter-professional learning between Nursing and other disciplines at IMU.