2265-PUB: Education in T2D: What Else Can We Do to Improve Patients' Quality of Life?

Brazil has more than 13 million people with diabetes, 4th place among top 10 countries for number of adults with diabetes. One of our main problems regarding T2D is lack of patients’ understanding about disease severity and its complications. Considering this, in 2017 we carried out a theater-experience for T2D education. There were 20 presentations for 1.400 patients all over the country, and a great result. Considering Brazil is huge and heterogeneous, in 2018 we decided to go beyond and listen what patients have to say, conducting Regional Patients Advisory Boards, so that we could understand the different scenarios of our 5 geographic regions and the main unmet needs, to design new effective educational programs for both patients and health care professionals. So, we had 5 meetings with patients from public and private health systems, and a local T2D leader conducting the discussion, to find out their journey, perceptions, treatment patterns and what is important for them. All patients and HCPs involved in this project were very impressed and satisfied with this action. Patients felt important and really the center of the discussion, and somebody was carrying about them. HCPs could learn a lot and think about what they are doing for patient’s education and to change this worrying scenario. Interestingly, they are now actively sharing this experience with other HCPs and spreading this way of bringing patients to the center of the decisions. The main Brazilian medical societies are interested in establishing partnerships to conduct educational and disease awareness actions. We have participated on the first T2D patients’ national conference, and have organized a big action in and also a symposium in 2 regions, impacting almost 2.000 people. Now we are preparing the next meetings addressing specific regional needs, also drafting a scientific manuscript for T2D awareness, and planning more actions together with medical societies to spread the importance of education for improving patients’ treatment and quality of life.