Type 2 Diabetic Patients Empowerment in Primary Care

Introduction: Empowering the users to better manage their diabetes is one of the Health Care Units professionals’ designations. They face the daily challenge of capacitating these users to self-care their illness. The main objective was to characterize diabetic self-care and to identify associated factors. Methods: Cross sectional analytical study. We used a convenience sample of 100 diabetic users who went to their health units between the 16th and the 30th of June of 2016 for a routine consultation. We analyzed demographic variables, ongoing treatment, glycemic, lipid and blood pressure control and Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities’s score, which is an instrument that measures diabetes self-management and is validated for Portuguese language. Results: “Blood sugar testing” was Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities’s least punctuated domain, followed by “exercise”. “Foot-care” was the most punctuated domain. We’ve found statistical significant associations between “exercise” and the male gender (p = 0.041), and also with users with schooling superior to the primary school (p = 0.002). Regarding the “blood sugar testing” domain we have found statistical significant associations between users with microvascular complications (p = 0.005), taking insulin/insulin and oral hypoglycemic agents (p = 0.006) and without glycemic control (p = 0.042). The association between Health Unit and “foot-care” was significant (p = 0.002), as with the “medication taking” (p = 0.011). Conclusion: Diabetes self-care levels encountered were high but we also found some deficient areas remaining which constitute a strong motivation for us to continue this project.