Present State of Nursing and Research for Patients with Diabetes Mellitus in Korea

　This paper will provide a brief overview of Korean statistics about diabetes mellitus (DM), present state of clinical nursing and research on patients with diabetes in Korea. The clinical nursing section will focus on diabetes education for the patients and their families. The trends of nursing studies will be reviewed focusing on recent studies, particularly intervention studies that have been conducted by clinical nurses and professors, rather than be a comprehensive review of the literature. Emphasis will be placed on the future direction of diabetes care, education and research on diabetes patients. All of the clinical nurses' efforts to help patients who suffer from DM and their families must be firmly based on research done in the field; the clinical nurse educators and researchers must work together. Also an accreditation process must be developed, to provide standards for DM education and to ensure quality of diabetes nurse educators.