Knowledge and practices on childhood diabetes in Africa

Abstract

Introduction: Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition that has a serious impact on the quality of life of the child and his family. According to the International Diabetes Federation, in addition to insulin therapy, therapeutic education is fundamental to improve care and reduce complications. The purpose of the work was to assess practitioners' knowledge of therapeutic education, highlight bad practices, and make recommendations for improving child management. Methodology: This was a prospective multicenter study investigating the non-insulin management of type 1 diabetic children in public health facilities in Dakar. Results: We interviewed 92 providers. This was 43.5% (40) Pediatric DES; 46.7% (43) of Grade 7 students and 6.5% (6) of pediatricians. Of these, 64.1% (59) had no diabetes training. They advocated a restrictive diet in 35.9% (33) of cases, including 2.2% (2) of pediatricians; 15.2% (14) of DES; 2.2% (2) diabetes educators and 16.3% (15) 7th grade. According to providers, the main targets of therapeutic education were single parents in 7.6% of cases. Among the providers, 23% did not think it necessary to adapt the treatment according to sporting or recreational activities. Sport was prohibited according to 9% of providers and for 10% the presence of a psychologist is useless in the care. Conclusion: Improving the quality of management of T1D requires continuous training of health care providers and the implementation of standardized protocols in the various health structures to avoid certain errors in the care.