Endocrine Abstracts

Summaries: Treatment adherence in Type 2 Diabetes: Experimental study research project

Diabetes is a metabolic disease brought about by high levels of glicose in the blood over a long period of time. It’s a disease which shows an increasing incidence, mainly in developed countries. When untreated, diabetes can cause several acute complications, such as ketoacidosis, hyperglycemic hyperosmolar state or even death. Prevention and treatment consist in maintaining adequate eating habits, doing physical activity regularly and keeping a normal weight. The development of type 2 diabetes prevention projects in the community is regarded as a significant opportunity of promoting health, whereby health professionals play a vital role in its implementation. This project is integrated in “Doctoral Program in Metabolism – Clinic and Experimental” and its aim is to evaluate the efficiency of a Therapeutical Education Program in the treatment adherence in Type 2 diabetes carriers. An experimental, quantitative study is going to be conducted among individuals with Type 2 diabetes, who are being followed by health professionals at a university hospital located in Porto, Portugal. The population will be submitted to randomization and separated into experimental and control groups. Randomization will be done through random number selection per site. The evaluation of results will be carried out by responding to a questionnaire entitled “Treatment adherence in diabetes”, both prior and posterior to the implementation of the program. It is expected that the results garnered from the questionnaire will prove that the adoption of Therapeutical Education Programs by the population will improve the rates of treatment adherence in diabetes.