[The effect of an educational intervention on the metabolic control of diabetic patients].

Background: Diabetic patients have a poor adherence to lifestyle changes and a low compliance with medications. Aim: To study the effect of an educational intervention on the metabolic control of patients with diabetes mellitus. Patients and Methods: We studied insulin requiring diabetic patients attended at a primary health care clinic, who were randomly divided in two groups. One group participated in four modules of an educative intervention, carried out in four occasions. The other group did not participate in the educational sessions. Clinical, anthropometric and laboratory variables of the participants were obtained from their medical records, at three and six months after the intervention. Results: We recruited 22 men aged 64 +/- 14 years and 48 women aged 63 +/- 10 years. Thirty-six of these received the educational intervention. Eighty four percent were overweight or obese. The proportion of compensated patients, defined as those having a glycosylated hemoglobin between 7 and 9%, increased significantly after the educational intervention (chi(2) = 7.9 p < 0.01, odds ratio: 0.2). Conclusions: A educational intervention in patients with insulin requiring diabetes mellitus improved the metabolic control of their disease.