World diabetes day 2022

Diabetes day

Världsdiabetesdagen den 14 november varje år startades av International Diabetes Federation och Världshälsoorganisationen år 1991 för att uppmärksamma att diabetes är en sjukdom som ökar hela tiden i hela världen. Den 14 november 1891 föddes Frederick Banting, en av upptäckarna av insulin.

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World Diabetes Day is every year on November 14, first created in 1991 by the International Diabetes Foundation and the World Health Organization. Diabetes is a chronic disease where the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin if any at all. It also leads to serious health conditions and, is why we take this day to spread awareness and education.

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Knowledgeable patients – are we ready for them? World Diabetes Day 2022

The prevalence of diabetes is increasing among people of all ages in the WHO European Region and is already affecting 10–12% of the population in certain Member States. In a typical year, a person with diabetes may see a health care professional for just a few hours in total. For the thousands of remaining hours, they have to look after themselves. Increasingly, countries are using therapeutic patient education (TPE) to equip diabetes patients with the skills and knowledge they need to do this. 

On average, a person with diabetes thinks about their disease every 20 minutes, every day of their life. It is not surprising therefore that there is an increasing appetite for people with diabetes to learn more about their condition, how to manage it, how to cope with the technology on which they rely, and how to make the best use of health care services. There are many treatments and interventions to manage diabetes, but they only work if the person with diabetes can manage their condition day to day with the support of carers and/or family members.

In response to this growing need for information and better self-care options, health care providers are developing TPE programmes, empowering patients and encouraging patient-centred care, involving people living with diabetes in the process and using learnings from their lived experience.

TPE can not only empower patients but can save health care providers time and money. “Time is always tight for clinicians and nurses,” says Professor Dr Karin Lange, Head of the Medical Psychology Unit at Hanover Medical School, where therapeutic education has been embedded into the medical curriculum for the last 15 years. “But when you educate patients well, you don’t need much time because they have fewer complications, less morbidity, and even a reduction in mortality.” 

A role for the medical community in self-care

Involving diabetes patients in treatment has always been considered necessary, but health providers have sometimes taken different approaches, lacked the competencies required to deliver a thorough and serious programme, or regarded TPE as an optional extra to complement treatment – but this is changing. 

“TPE is a powerful idea,” says Professor Mehmet Ungan, a Professor of Family Medicine in Türkiye and past President of the World Organization of Family Doctors. “I don’t know if the medical community is ready to handle this power. I don’t know if patients are either. It can be a challenge. It has to be built into doctors’ daily routines, how you treat each patient, depending on what staffing you have, and what expectations you and the patient have. We hope that TPE can be a central part of medical education everywhere; something which will be repeated throughout the career of all health care professionals and not treated as just a one-off exercise. It is too important for that.”

TPE trainings for both patients and professionals

Heath professionals can be trained in TPE at different levels, not only in medical schools but also in refresher courses, core training for new staff, and as part of lifelong training. Countries, regions or organizations wishing to rapidly expand access to TPE training programmes can also use a ‘training the trainer’ model of cascade learning. What health professionals learn – from how the words they use can affect a patient to how the patient can access wider health services – can help enable diabetes patients to self-manage their conditions, not only removing fear and worry but also reducing complications in their condition.

Patients’ TPE courses may also take different forms to fit a diverse set of needs. They can range from a mandatory 14-day course to train the parents of children newly diagnosed with diabetes; to a weekly evening course over 6 weeks, where patients discuss and decide what goals and interventions would improve their lives; to a programme that includes a monthly lecture delivered online by a diabetes specialist to a local self-help group.

WHO for health education and literacy

WHO/Europe is currently developing a Guide to Therapeutic Patient Education, to be published in early 2023. This will update a working paper on therapeutic education issued by WHO/Europe in 1998 and will reflect the significant changes in the evidence base and clinical practice in the field.

This year, for the first time ever, Member States have established global targets for diabetes coverage and the WHO Global Diabetes Compact makes a commitment to ‘health education and literacy’ as a workstream of the Compact in line with the World Diabetes Day 2022 theme of ‘access to diabetes education’.

EDUCATION TO PROTECT TOMORROW

The theme for World Diabetes Day 2021-23 is access to diabetes care.

In 2022, the campaign focuses on the need for better access to quality diabetes education for healthcare professionals and people living with diabetes. 

One in 10 adults around the world currently live with diabetes, an estimated 537 million people. Almost half do not know they have it. This is putting added strain on healthcare systems.

Healthcare professionals must know how to detect and diagnose diabetes early and make the most of the limited time they have to provide the best possible advice and care for people living with diabetes.

For more than 95% of the time, people living with diabetes are looking after themselves. They need access to ongoing education to understand their condition and carry out the daily self-care essential to staying healthy and avoiding complications.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is committed to facilitating learning opportunities for all people impacted by diabetes.

The Understanding Diabetes platform provides free online and interactive courses to help people with diabetes and their carers to understand and manage their condition.

The IDF School of Diabetes offers a selection of free and premium online courses to help health professionals stay up-to-date with various aspects of diabetes management and treatment.

Education can help stop the rise of diabetes and protect tomorrow.

Want to know more. https://worlddiabetesday.org

World Diabetes Day (WDD) was created in 1991 by IDF and the World Health Organization in response to growing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes. World Diabetes Day became an official United Nations Day in 2006 with the passage of United Nation Resolution 61/225. It is marked every year on 14 November, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.

https://worlddiabetesday.org/about/