ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To compare the impact of participative education (PE) and traditional education (TE) in the knowledge about diabetes, adherence to treatment, quality of life and control of the illness of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). METHODS: 202 patients with DM2 (both sexes from 20 to 60 years of age) were randomly assigned to groups, the TE or control group, and the PE or expe-rimental group. The group control attended to a monthly meeting in four occasions and the experimental group to six meetings during a week. Both groups were evaluated before and after the intervention, using two instruments; one that evaluates knowledge about diabetes and adherence to treatment, and another for the quality of life and control of the illness with the average of the last four plasmatic glucose levels. The results were analyzed with Student t. RESULTS: The baseline status of both groups was similar. Grades based on knowledge of the illness at the end of the intervention were 4.05 points higher (p = 0.0001) with PE and 0.09 points higher (p = 0.78) with TE. For adherence to treatment there was an increase of 0.71 (p < 0.0001) with PE, and a decrease of 0.39 (p = 0.50) with TE. As to quality of life, the PE group showed an increase of 10.5 (p = 0.0001), and a decrease of 2.93 (p = 0.002) the TE group. Average serum glucose levels were reduced 46.5 mg/dL (p = 0.0001) after PE and 16.68 mg/dL (p = 0.018) after TE. CONCLUSIONS: The PE intervention is superior to TE for improving knowledge, adherence to treatment and control of the illness in patients with DM2.
