07/11/2014

TRAINING IMPARTED BY EXPERT PATIENTS IMPROVES LIFE HABITS, PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SELF-CARE IN DIABETIC PEOPLE

The participants in the Patient Education Workshops and in the Active Patient Program have decreased their visits to Primary Care Centers by 33% and have not needed to go to the Emergency Room in the past 6 months.

ESTEVE collaborates in the meetings held today in Granada, attended by patient training responsibles from the different Autonomous Communities and where health results obtained in diabetic patient training are presented.

Habits such as a healthy diet and physical exercise, social relationships and interpersonal communication, self-esteem and self-care, are just a few of the aspects that diabetic people improve when they attend patient training workshops. This is the conclusion reached by a study on the impact of projects such as the Patient Education Center (www.escueladepacientes.es) from the Department of Health, Social Policy and Equality and from the Active Patient Program of the Basque Public Health System, on people attending these training workshops.

Among the most striking data having a direct repercussion on healthcare services, Primary Care visits were decreased by 33% and Emergency Room visits were drastically reduced, says Alina Danet, from the EASP-coordinated research group at the Biomedical Research Centre Network for Epidemiology and Public Health of the Institute of Health Carlos III.

This research was designed by the Andalusian School of Public Health (EASP) and included 300 participants from Andalusia and the Basque Country who conducted training workshops imparted by expert patients from both autonomous communities. This was a qualitative and quantitative study with the main objective of evaluating the impact of a training-learning strategy in diabetic patients based on peer education. In addition, the elements favoring or complicating this impact, as well as the improvements to be implemented in both training programs to continue to make good progress, were analyzed.

In this sense, participants suggest a more intense follow-up of training and a better accessibility to workshops by newly diagnosed individuals, as well as strengthening the workshop contents in terms of work, gender, health, sexuality, and psychic and emotional health. Both programs took note to start working on the lines of information and training demanded by the patients themselves.

ONE-DAY MEETING

This Friday, the Andalusian School of Public Health will hold the "Evaluation of Training in Diabetic Patients" meeting, to be attended by professionals, expert patients from Andalusia and the Basque Country, and responsibles from other Autonomous Communities, with ESTEVE's collaboration. The results will be presented at 12 noon.

In addition to detailing the results obtained in the study and the areas for improvement to be approached, three roundtables will be held: 'Peer Education vs. Therapeutic Education in Health', 'Patient Training Experiences at the Autonomic and National Level', and 'How to incorporate patients to diabetes strategies'.

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