Abstract:

Qatar is a rapidly developing country with enormous natural gas and oil reservoirs, and it is the richest nation in the world per capita. Contrary to its modern health care system, Qatar has one of the highest rates of diabetes mellitus (DM). The overall prevalence of DM among adults in the Qatari population is 16.7%. The International Association for the Study of Obesity has ranked Qatar 5th for the prevalence of diabetics between the ages of 20 and 79 years with women having higher rates of diabetes than men. Genetic effects such as cousin consanguineous marriages and more recently excessive consumption of fast food, a sedentary lifestyle with air-conditioned housing, luxury cars, servants, and little physical activities have been identified as contributing factors. DM in Qatar is a major health concern that requires raising awareness of its causes, symptoms, and management.

My interest in diabetes mellitus (DM) in Qatar began during my visits to the Weil Cornell Medical Center in Qatar, where I presented a colloquium, visited the Hamad Hospital, the newly built state-of-the-art Sidra hospital and Research Center and realized the extent of the problem. An approach to address this public health problem in Qatar is educating nursing students and the nursing workforce and coordinating and managing effective health care models. Nurse scholars and educators have a crucial role in developing and implementing multifaceted models taking into account the socio-cultural, religious, and economic factors.

The purpose of this project is to review the current findings on the status of DM, the sociocultural and religious influences, and propose a comprehensive model to address this problem. Research and experience have demonstrated that the application of multi-faceted culturally appropriate healthcare models yield long-term and sustainable results.

Bronfenbrenner’s social-ecological model classifies the layers of influence on health behavior as the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem. The microsystem refers to the individual’s daily interactions with the immediate family members and workgroups. The mesosystem is the interrelation among different settings a person is involved, such as family and school, peer groups, the church/mosque, and the individual’s neighborhood. The exosystem defines larger social systems, such as the community, local services, and health policies. The macrosystem refers to the cultural beliefs and conceptions on health, the value system, customs, and religion that affect health behavior. The macrosystem is the outermost layer and has a down cascading effect on all other layers. All these layers have influence on health behavior and need to be integrated into nursing education. Incorporating this multilevel model approach to nursing education, and into practice can provide a culturally appropriate and sustainable road map for management and prevention of the diabetes epidemic in Qatar.

Keywords:

Diabetes mellitus, nursing education, nursing practice in Qatar, diploma, baccalaureate.