Anthroposocial-Medical-Educational Approach and Educational Diagnosis of People Living with Type 2 Diabetes: Case of the National Obesity Centre in Cameroon

Abstract

Therapeutic patient education is an approach that is increasingly used in the management of chronic diseases. It has a structure, the first essential component of which is the educational diagnosis. However, empirical findings show that this first link is often forgotten or poorly negotiated in the implementation of therapeutic patient education. This situation reveals a difficulty in contextualising the proposed models. Hence our objective, which was to describe the process of integrating the anthroposocial-medical approach into the construction of an educational diagnosis for people living with type 2 diabetes. We conducted a descriptive qualitative study in the National Obesity Centre of the Yaoundé Central Hospital. People living with type 2 diabetes and health professionals constituted our target population and our sample size reached saturation with 16 participants (10 patients and 6 professionals). Semi-structured interviews using interview guides were conducted with the participants. The results revealed that in order to integrate the anthropological dimension in the construction of the educational diagnosis, firstly, the health professional must become acquainted with the patient's culture, his or her eating habits, find out about his or her dietary difficulties and investigate his or her behaviour in the usual environment. Secondly, the health professional must get the patient to verbalise his or her representation of the disease, his or her practices and therapeutic remedies. Thirdly, the health professional must get the patient to narrate his or her therapeutic itinerary. In order to integrate the social dimension into the construction of the educational diagnosis, the professional must firstly find out about the patient's economic situation. Secondly, he/she must find out about the patient's profession, his/her plans, find out about his/her professional interactions and assess his/her physical activity. Thirdly, he/she has to find out about his/her interactions with his/her family. Finally, in order to integrate the medical dimension into the construction of the educational diagnosis, the health professional must collect the patient's biomedical data and assess the patient's knowledge of his or her illness. In conclusion, the anthroposocialmedical approach can be considered as a contextual guide in the process of constructing an educational diagnosis which constitutes the foundation for the development of a therapeutic education programme.