Lynette, CusackRebecca, MuntAlgharash, Hassan2025-10-062025https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14154/76551Diabetes is a significant chronic condition, and one of the ten most common causes of mortality globally. The population of Saudi Arabia has a high rate of diabetes, placing an enormous burden on the healthcare system. Therefore, when the Saudi Arabian government launched the 2030 Vision, one of the main components was to improve the quality of life of people with diabetes. People with diabetes need to self-manage their chronic condition by maintaining their blood glucose levels within a target range to reduce the risk of developing diabetes-related complications. Therefore, it is essential that they receive diabetes self- management education. Nurses in acute care settings, such as medical and surgical wards, are in a position to provide opportunistic diabetes self-management education to inpatients with diabetes. Specialist diabetes educators are not available to inpatients in many hospitals within Saudi Arabia. Therefore, nurses in hospitals must be competent in both diabetes management and patient education to enhance patients’ quality of life. The aim of this study was to understand the attitudes, knowledge and skills of nurses working in Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health hospitals to undertake diabetes self-management education for inpatients, and the facilitators and/or barriers to providing diabetes self- management education to inpatients. The competency in delivering health and patient education framework was employed to guide the study. This framework brings together nurses’ knowledge, skills and attitudes in both their management of diabetes and in delivering patient education. A sequential explanatory mixed- methods design was utilised where quantitative data were collected and analysed first, informing the qualitative data collection and analysis. In the first phase, a paper-based questionnaire was distributed to nurses working in medical and surgical wards in four Saudi Arabian hospitals, attracting 157 responses. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. In the second phase, 12 nurses participated in semi- structured interviews. The qualitative data were analysed using inductive content analysis. The results from both phases were then integrated using a joint display approach. The survey results focused on diabetes management revealed that nurse respondents have outdated knowledge and skills. However, nurse respondents indicated they felt confident and had a positive attitude towards managing inpatients with diabetes. The study also found nurse respondents had a good understanding of and a positive attitude towards inpatient education. In the qualitative phase three main categories were identified: 1) barriers to providing inpatient education, 2) barriers to acquiring diabetes management knowledge, and 3) enablers of providing diabetes self-management education. Data integration highlighted that there are significant environmental factors that are barriers to nurses providing diabetes self-management education to inpatients, such as lack of access to continuing professional development, limited time, an absence of higher management support and lack of patient education resources. To ensure nursing care aligns with the 2030 Vision, nursing leaders must be proactive to address the suboptimal diabetes knowledge and skills, and the environmental barriers to providing effective patient education. Without addressing the current barriers, the quality of care of patients with diabetes will continue to be compromised.247enNursesCompetencyDiabetesEducationThesis