Rescue of the care group for people with diabetes using insulin after the covid-19 pandemic: An experience report

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Health education groups are configured as tools in health promotion and disease prevention, as they encourage the collective construction of new knowledge, leading to a conscious practice of behaviors that expand decision-making for a healthy life. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the interruption of the groups, directly impacting the living conditions of the patients who made up the groups. OBJECTIVE: To report the rescue planning of a health education group aimed at diabetic patients who use insulin. DEVELOPMENT: There was a change in post-pandemic health standards, so, seeking to comply with them, Primary Health Care professionals experienced a challenge for the resumption of the insulin-dependent group. When carrying out the survey of the target audience, a scenario of approximately 1,400 people with Diabetes was estimated, which is equivalent to 10% of the population assigned to the team. The resumption of the group was designed so that the group would target insulin dependents and their caregivers. It was decided that there would be monthly meetings lasting one hour in the auditorium of the Basic Health Unit (UBS), in which a different team would conduct the meeting at each meeting. In order to carry out an active search for the target audience, they were invited during home visits by Community Health Agents, in the daily life of the UBS and through dissemination on social networks. RESULTS: Planning for the resumption of the group began in October 2022, after authorization and encouragement for the practice of collective activities by the municipal health department and stimuli from the FortaleceRAS project. Each team was free to plan the methodology that would be used at each meeting. In general, conversation circles, simulations, presentation of videos and images, among other active methodologies, are carried out. On the day of the meeting, the team seeks to discuss a topic suggested by patients in the previous meeting. Among the topics that have already been discussed are: Insulin preparation, administration and storage; Types of diabetes; Importance of glycemic control; Signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia; Foot self-care and healthy eating for people living with diabetes. One of the challenges was the population's fear of returning to collective activities, especially when it comes to people who are at risk for COVID-19. CONTRIBUTIONS TO SUS AND THE POPULATION: The resumption of the group for insulin dependents strengthens the idea that the group is as important as individual care. Considering that it is an attempt to break the paradigm of verticalization of professional-patient knowledge, making the guidelines more useful if exposed in a general and problematizing way. Since they stimulate the discussion of how much each subject knows and understands their own pathology and information and whether or not they can experience it in their daily lives, making them authors of their own care.