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3
Results
The majority of respondents (53.5%) was female, was between 40 and 92 years of
age, being the average age of 62.7±12.8 years, lived with someone (92.3%), had as
education the first grade (75.9%) and was retired (59.9%).
To the extent that literacy, empowerment and the QoL of people with type 2
diabetes constitute structural dimensions of research, we must point out some facts
that are not dominant, but are relevant in decision-making within the framework of
continuous improvement of clinical practice: 7.7% of respondents were not able to
read or write,
about half was aged 64 years or more; 9.2% were unskilled workers;
and 7.7% were unemployed.
From the clinical point of view, it was found that the average time of diagnosis was
14.7±9.5 years, the BMI mean was 30.9±5.7 kg/m
2
and the HbA1C mean was
7.9±1.5%.
Circa 70% of respondents were treated with insulin and/or another therapy and
42% used insulin alone. Only 33.2% complied with the diet and 54.2% practiced
physical exercise with a mean of 1.8±2.5 hours per week. Hypertension was the most
frequent associated pathology referred (52.9%), followed by dyslipidemia (21.2%). In
what concerns complications of diabetes, 48.9% of respondents indicated to suffer
from complications, with strong expression for retinopathy (28.5%) followed by
neuropathy (15.8%).
In what concerns the reliability of the instrument that evaluates the perception
about the disease control, the DES-SF's alpha ascended to 0.753 in our sample,
indicating a reasonable internal consistency [9]. All items had very closed scores,
with the exception of question 6 (“
can ask for support for having and caring for my
diabetes when I need it
”) that had the highest mean score (4.34 ± 0.8). The overall
mean score was 3.68 ± 0.7. Table 1 presents the descriptive results of DES-SF in our
sample.
The DKT mean was 63.4±12.3% of recorded correct answers among people with
non-insulin-treated diabetes and 65.74±12.4% among the insulin-treated. The largest
global knowledge deficits in the area of diabetes are related to different aspects,
namely: measures which should not be taken in situations of hypoglycemia, selection
of most appropriate food according to caloric characteristics, clinical significance of
HbA1C, and the clear identification of food mainly composed of lipids. The lack of
responses or the number of incorrectness of responses to these items respectively
amounted to 91.2%, 84.6%, 63.1% and 59.2%. The areas that registered greater
fragility of specific knowledge for insulin treated people were those related to the
signs of ketoacidosis and the identification of the peak of intermediate insulin action,
respectively 88.2% and 65.5% inaccuracies/absence of reply.
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