A Peer Support Program to Enhance Treatment Adherence in Patients With Type 2 DM

The traditional model of attention has not been able to face the diabetes epidemic mainly because it is treated like an acute disease instead of like a chronic condition. Given that it requires a continuous and integrated management that cares for all the aspects of the patient's disease, it is fundamental that the patients learn to live with diabetes, and to manage it effectively to improve their life quality and reduce the risks of long term complications.

The peer support programs include people who live with the same condition (patients, relatives and friends) who have received training related to their treatment, becoming an important social, emotional and practical support in the daily care of chronic diseases.They become comfortable enough as to share their emotions and experiences with other patients with their same condition.

Many studies have shown that the patients with diabetes who commit to provide peer support to others also improve their self-care and glycemic long-term control.

The meetings with group leaders consist discussions among the patients where they share experiences and solutions to barriers.

The Center of Comprehensive Care for the Patient with Diabetes (CAIPaDi) was created with the objective of investigating about new strategies to promote empowerment, self-efficacy and the reach of metabolic control in order to prevent diabetes complications (protocol "Validation of an integrated attention model for the patient with type 2 diabetes" reference number 1198). The inclusion criteria are: less than 5 years of diagnosis of diabetes, absence of chronic complications, not smoking and having a relative to join them in all the sessions. The program consists of 4 initial visits, one per month, and includes attention from 9 specialties: endocrinology, psychology, nutrition, ophthalmology, diabetes education, odontology, physical activity, foot care and psychiatry. Upon conclusion of the fourth visit, a counter-reference of each patient is sent to their corresponding particular physician. In this report, each specialty explains in a detailed manner the strengths and opportunity areas of the patient. Afterwards, the patient is given an appointment a year after concluding the first phase of the program (visit 5) and a year after this visit (visit 6).

Description of the interventions

1. Identification of the "group leaders"

Patients who fulfill the eligibility criteria will be invited and asked to sign the informed consent, afterwards they will attend 7 training sessions of 60 minutes each, the following topics will be assessed in each of them:

1. Reinforcement of the metabolic control goals and most common problems in diabetes.
2. Self-care activities: detection and appropriate treatment of hypoglycemia, glucose self-monitoring, foot care and actions on concomitant diseases.
3. Adherence to meal plan
4. Structuration of activities to increase physical activity or diminish sedentarism and measurement methods (steps per day, identification of exercise intensity levels)
5. Emotional aspects of diabetes (duel and motivation stages)
6. Adhesion to pharmacologic treatment (medications and insulin)

Each session will be arranged by a team researcher and will be structured in the following way:

10 minutes: reminder of activities and resolution of doubts from the previous session 50 minutes: new subject of each session

After the patient has completed the training, an objective structured clinical evaluation will be performed. The patients who approve the evaluation will receive a group management session where they will obtain the necessary skills to motivate and transmit information to the rest of the group.

Phase 2: Integration of patient groups All the patients who finish the fourth visit in the centre will be invited, those who accept will be randomized into participants or control patients.

Each group will be formed by 2 group leaders and 5 patients. The minimum number of participants per session will be 2 (one leader and one patient). Five sessions are projected, one every 2 months, where the next topics will be reviewed in each of them:

1. Identification of motivation and duel stages
2. Reinforcement of metabolic control goals
3. Self-care activities:detection and appropriate treatment of hypoglycemia, glucose self-monitoring, foot care and actions on concomitant diseases and insulin application.
4. Enhancement of adhesion to simplified meal plan and recognition of portions
5. Structuration of activities to boost physical activity and/or reduce sedentarism and how to measure it (steps per day and identification of exercise intensity levels)

Motivational messages and reminders will be created and sent by WhatsApp (cross-platform instant messaging application) weekly to patients, controls and group leaders to strengthen adhesion to integral treatment.

Every session will be carried out in the facilities of the centre, where the leaders will share their experiences with the rest of the group to reinforce self-care activities.