Abstract
BackgroundThe world guidance on the measures of social distancing for prevention of COVID-19 has changed the daily habits of great part of the population, and this could influence the care and resilience with diabetes during situations of adversity. This study aimed at assessing the characteristics of diabetic individuals and self-care practices and resilience with diabetes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional web survey study carried out among adults with diabetes, in which a structured 43-item questionnaire was conducted on the REDCap plataform, including the Diabetes Self-Care Activities Questionnaire and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, to measure socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. The web survey was disseminated through the main social media and data were collected from September 1st to October 19th, 2020. Data analysis was performed according to type of diabetes mellitus (DM) and at a significance level of 5% (p < 0.05).ResultsOf the 1633 participants, 67.5% were women, 43.2% aged between 35 and 59 years old, 68.0% lived in the south-eastern region of Brazil, 57.1% had a high education level, 49% reported to have DM1 and 140 participants reported to have had COVID-19. Diabetes care mostly involved the use of medications (93%), whereas the least used ones were physical activity (24.6%) and examination of the shoes (35.7%). About 40% of the participants reported to be followed up by telemedicine, 61.5% monitored the glycaemic levels, 61.2% followed a healthy diet and 43.4% left home only to go to the supermarket and drugstore. The mean resilience was 25.4 (SD = 7.7).ConclusionsIn Brazil, individuals with diabetes followed social distancing and maintained their medication treatment for DM. However, practice of physical activity and foot examination was little followed by the participants, who also had a low level of resilience. These findings showed the importance of patient follow-up in the healthcare services, meaning that telemedicine should be improved and support provided for adaptation in view of the therapeutic setbacks.
Highlights
The world guidance on the measures of social distancing for prevention of COVID-19 has changed the daily habits of great part of the population, and this could influence the care and resilience with diabetes during situ‐ ations of adversity
Of the 1918 participants who answered the questionnaire, 14.5% were excluded from the study due to the following reasons: 12.0% had no diabetes, 0.8% did not live in Brazil and 1.9% were younger than 18 years old
1633 diabetic people participated in this study: 49.3% had type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1) and 39.5% type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2)
Summary
The world guidance on the measures of social distancing for prevention of COVID-19 has changed the daily habits of great part of the population, and this could influence the care and resilience with diabetes during situ‐ ations of adversity. This study aimed at assessing the characteristics of diabetic individuals and self-care practices and resilience with diabetes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Studies suggest that inadequate glycaemic control increases the risk of undesired outcomes in diabetes [6, 7]. Brazil has up to 16.8 million people with diabetes (11.4% of the population aged 20–79 years old), being among the five main countries in number of individuals with DM [8] as there is evidence that about 50% of them do not know they have the disease [9]. Additional data on glycaemic control in Brazil show that only a minority (about 25%) met the therapeutic goal of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) < 7% before the pandemic, as recommended by the Brazilian Diabetes Society (SBD) [10]
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