C05: Patient Education & Self-Management

A neuropathic foot cannot feel danger, so the patient must learn to see it, every day, with no warning signal to prompt them. The evidence holds a tension the module states openly: education is indispensable, but a single session improves knowledge and self-reported behaviour without reliably reducing ulceration or amputation. The task is to move from giving information to changing behaviour.

The module teaches the inspect, protect, care and escalate curriculum, and teach-back as the check that education has landed. It uses COM-B to diagnose why a particular patient is not performing a behaviour, so the remedy fits the barrier, whether that is a mirror and a helper or a conversation about motivation. It covers health literacy, motivational interviewing, home skin-temperature monitoring including the DIATEMP finding that benefit followed acting on a hotspot, why fear without efficacy backfires on a foot that does not hurt, and integrating education with footwear and offloading.

Content is tiered at Foundation, Core and Advanced level, with two algorithms and three case vignettes. You receive the Teaching Document, the Evidence Base, the slide deck and a narrated video.