Programa de educação em saúde melhora indicadores de autocuidado em diabetes e hipertensão

Among chronic non-transmissible diseases, systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are the most frequent and constitute a global health problem. In view of the need to implement self-care programs about these diseases, the objective of this study is to validate a self-care program for diabetic and hypertensive patients. It is a prospective cohort study of a population of 100 individuals who were in the waiting room. The data collection was done through questionnaires about different topics, that were applied in the meetings, to evaluate the knowledge of patients in the pretest and posttest. Only a few specific questions of each theme did not present a significant difference between the pretest and posttest. However, all the themes addressed presented posttest knowledge increment. Therefore, this self-care program can be validated for diabetic and hypertensive patients, because it promotes an increase of knowledge for these patients.