Evaluation of the Capillary Blood Glucose Self-monitoring Program

Self-care competence in the administration of insulin in older people aged 70 or over1

Objective:

to analyze the self-care competence in the administration of insulin performed by older people aged 70 or over.

Method:

cross-sectional study carried out with 148 older people aged 70 or over, who performed self-administration of insulin. Data collection was carried out using a structured questionnaire and an adapted guide for the application of the Scale to Identify Self-Care Competence of Patients with Diabetes, at the participants’ home. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistical tests, with forward logistic regression.

Results:

the prevalence of self-care competence in the administration of insulin was 35.1%. Handwashing error was the most frequent in self-administration of insulin. Self-care competence was negatively associated with retirees and positively associated with senior patients who performed capillary blood glucose monitoring and skin pinching during insulin application.

Conclusion:

there was low self-care competence and it was associated with both the sociodemographic and the clinical characteristics with regard to self-application of insulin by the older people.

Adherence to diabetes mellitus care at three levels of health care

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate adherence to self-care among people with diabetes mellitus cared for at the three levels of health care. Method: Quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study addressing a sample of 143 people from a city in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil from primary (45), secondary (48) and tertiary (50) units. Adherence to self-care was assessed using the "The Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities Measure" and "Measurement of Treatment Adherence". Results: Adherence to exercises, blood glucose monitoring, shoe inspection, and the use of insulin differed between units; better results were obtained for those in tertiary care. Conclusion: The results indicate a need for greater investment in the initial phase of treatment to improve self-care adherence. Implications for practice: The study enabled identifying the profile of individuals in terms of self-care adherence and supporting the planning of nursing interventions in diabetes mellitus.

Diagnosis of compliance of health care product processing in Primary Health Care

ABSTRACT Objective: identify the compliance of health care product processing in Primary Health Care and assess possible differences in the compliance among the services characterized as Primary Health Care Service and Family Health Service. Method: quantitative, observational, descriptive and inferential study with the application of structure, process and outcome indicators of the health care product processing at ten services in an interior city of the State of São Paulo - Brazil. Results: for all indicators, the compliance indices were inferior to the ideal levels. No statistically significant difference was found in the indicators between the two types of services investigated. The health care product cleaning indicators obtained the lowest compliance index, while the indicator technical-operational resources for the preparation, conditioning, disinfection/sterilization, storage and distribution of health care products obtained the best index. Conclusion: the diagnosis of compliance of health care product processing at the services assessed indicates that the quality of the process is jeopardized, as no results close to ideal levels were obtained at any service. In addition, no statistically significant difference in these indicators was found between the two types of services studied.