Adherence to self-care practices and empowerment of people with diabetes mellitus: a randomized clinical trial.

Objective: To evaluate adherence to self-care and glycemic control and empowerment of people with diabetes mellitus in group education.

Method: Cluster-randomized clinical trial, with participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus. All people in the sample were linked to Family Health Strategy Units from Divinópolis, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, during 2014 and 2015. Data regarding adherence to self-care practices, empowerment and glycated hemoglobin were collected for comparison of groups in the baseline and of intergroup results before and after interventions. The chosen level of significance was 0.05.

Results: The sample had 183 people, with 72 in the intervention group and 111 in the control group. A statistically significant decrease (< 0.001) in the value of glycated hemoglobin and an increase in the scores of adherence to self-care and empowerment scales were found for participants in the intervention group (< 0.001).

Conclusion: Group education caused an increase in the scores of the scales of adherence to self-care practices and empowerment, in addition to an improvement in glycemic levels, as shown by glycated hemoglobin results. Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials: RBR-92j38t.