The Diabetes Education Study Group of the EASD and Its Activities to Improve the Education of People with Diabetes

In this paper, the activities of the Diabetes Education Study Group (DESG) are presented. Since its foundation in 1979, the DESG had among its aims to improve the quality of life of people with diabetes and to foster their independence. A few assumptions informed the DESG activity since the beginning: appropriate self-management by the patients requires knowledge skills and motivation, whose improvement is largely doctors’ and other health professionals’ responsibility. To be effective in their counseling activity health professionals need to acquire skills in the domain of human sciences that are not usually taught in medical schools. Health professionals also need to change traditional attitudes for an empathic listening and a share of treatment responsibility with their patients. Based on these assumptions, the DESG concentrated on the following activities: interactive workshops, which in the years have become a sort of trademark of the DESG, and which are described here in detail; publications both for health professionals and for patients, a comprehensive web-site for health professionals, and a basic curriculum in therapeutic patient education. The future of therapeutic patient education in the field of diabetes is discussed.