BARCELONA

Nurse in charge: Carme Boix de la Casa

Entity/Agency in charge: Institut Català de la Salut. Gerència Territorial Catalunya Central

Description

The Programa Pacient Expert Catalunya® (PPE-Cat®) ensures the promotion of the quality of life and the coexistence with the chronical disease through the exchange of knowledge between the expert patient and the patients in the group during 9 structured weekly sessions lasting 90 minutes each. The expert patient conducts the group with the support of professionals that take part in it as observers.

A study on the effectiveness of this active and participative peer learning on patients of type II mellitus diabetes was designed and a controlled, multicenter clinical study was carried out to analyze the improvement on the knowledge of diabetes in the change on the lifestyles, in self-care, in the quality of life and in the control of the disease.

498 subjects have taken part in it, 256 of them in the intervention group (9 sessions of PPE-Cat® filling in the questionnaires and clinical data, at the time of the inclusion and 6 and 12 months after the end of the intervention) and 242 of them in the control group, who filled in the questionnaires and clinical data at the same time as the intervention groups.

At 6 and 12 months, the subjects of the intervention group displayed an improvement in the knowledge of the disease, in the lifestyle and in the subscales of physical exercise, feet care and diet in the self-care questionnaire. After 12 months, they were less worried about the disease. The subjects of the intervention group showed a reduction (at 6 months) of the 0.26% in glycosylated A1 hemoglobin (HbA1G). Those who had a basal HbA1G over 8.0% and those who had it over 8.5% saw a reduction of 0.99% and 1.25% respectively at 6 months, and this reduction remained at 12 months.

The PPE-Cat® for patients with type II mellitus diabetes is an effective intervention because it improves the knowledge on the disease, the lifestyles, the self-care of the patients and the quality of life in terms of satisfaction and worries about the disease, and it reduces the HbA1G.