RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Therapeutic education helps patients to acquire the knowledge and ability to live with their disease. However, some patients are not willing to take part in a health education program. Identifying the barriers of their non-adherence would help us to determine accurately their effective educational needs and to adapt the program to deliver a better education for less-motivated patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: An education program for chronic kidney disease stage 3 patients was implemented across a health network. The study is based on patient's participation during each step of the program. The reasons for non-participation were collected, via direct survey and cross-referencing with available medical records. RESULTS: From 80 eligible patients, and after medical approval, 66 patients received information about the program. Thirty-six patients elected to participate in program and 21 of them joined a therapeutic education group. We did not find any significant differences in the medical or social profile to determine the characteristics of non-participating patients. We found less program involvement however, with patients complying with biomedical follow-up but who do not benefit from complementary paramedical care. CONCLUSION: Nearly half of patients did not take part in the therapeutic education program, primarily those who did not benefit from a multidisciplinary team to manage their chronic disease. Therapeutic education remains a less known concept by patients, and requires an informative and encouraging exhortation from practitioners during casual medical care.
