Diabetes Education Study Group

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT
Prof. Aldo Maldonato - September 2002

I cannot start this report without mentioning my deep sorrow for the recent loss that has left our Association without one of its most brilliant past Presidents. Michael Berger believed in the education of people with diabetes, and was the first Honorary Secretary of the DESG from its foundation in 1979 throughout 1984. With the support of the Duesseldorf team, driven by the enthusiasm and dedication of his wife Ingrid Muelhauser, he has brought an invaluable contribution to the diffusion of systematic TPE in Germany and in Eastern European Countries. Several members of the Executive Committee, including myself, were linked to Michael by a long-lasting esteem and friendship. On behalf of the Executive Committee I wish to express our sincere condolences to Ingrid and to all his co-workers and friends.

On the occasion of the 26th Meeting of the General Committee of the Diabetes Education Study Group of the EASD, I wish to gratefully acknowledge the long-lasting unconditional support of Servier which has allowed our Study Group, since its foundation, to be active and productive. In particular, I wish to thank Dr Jean-Philippe Seta, Chief Executive Officer, Dr Laurence Alliot, Director of the Medical Affairs Department, and Dr Didier Halimi, Director of International Scientific Communication, for the continuity of their involvement and their unshakeable belief in the partnership between Servier and the DESG.

I am especially grateful to the four members of the Executive Committee whose term expires this year: Dr Pesach Segal (the Vice-President), Dr Arun Baksi (the Honorary Treasurer), Dr Mikhail Antsiferov and Ms Eva Maria Baumer, and to the two other remaining members: Mr Godfrey Xuereb, the Honorary Secretary and Dr Alain Golay, the Director of Educational Strategies, for their invaluable help and continuous encouragement. My warmest thanks also to Ms Nina Bonagura Coscione, in the Rome secretariat.

Since the last General Committee meeting in Glasgow, in September 2001, an Expert Workshop for drafting 5 new Teaching Letters and a DESG-Servier Partnership Meeting have been held, new Teaching Letters and new Patient Education Basics for Type 2 Diabetes have been published, and the DESG website has been updated.

EXPERT WORKSHOP FOR DRAFTING 5 NEW TEACHING LETTERS
To produce a new series of Teaching Letters, a meeting was held in Celano, Italy, from 25-30 January, 2002, with the participation of 23 doctors, nurses, dieticians, psychologists. As a result of 5 days'; work in small groups using Metaplan first, and then computers, five new Teaching Letters were drafted, entitled:
'Education to the Use of Hi-Tech Devices';
'Physical Activity and Diabetes';
'Awareness of Emotions and Emotional Intelligence in Diabetes Care';
'Assessing and Improving Quality in Diabetes Education';
'Quality of Life, a Parameter in Diabetes Care';

During the meeting, the writing was interspersed with interactive sessions on the following topics: Emotional intelligence; Quality of life and diabetes; Quality criteria and assessment; The courage to change: learning to adopt new attitudes.

The first of those Teaching Letters is in print and the second and third ones shall be published this year. The other two will be published next year.

All DESG members will receive these Teaching Letters which have been or will be produced with help of the current sponsor, through Servier subsidiaries.

BASIC CURRICULUM FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
As reported last year, the DESG has published in March 2001 a 64-page document entitled 'Basic Curriculum for Health Professionals on Diabetes Therapeutic Education'; which was produced by group work during two workshops (Step 1).

The document, based on WHO recommendations, consists in the detailed description of eight one-day modules covering the basic skills that are required to Health Care Providers in the field of therapeutic patient education. The proposed curriculum allows for different formats of implementation according to local needs, and provides a tool for the systematic training of diabetes educators. It has been mailed to all DESG members, and to relevant people in healthcare administration in Europe.

A STEP (Spreading Therapeutic Education for Patients) action was planned in partnership with Servier in order to present the curriculum to health professionals invited by Servier subsidiaries from all over the world. (Step 2).

The autonomous implementation of the curriculum in different countries, according to local needs and opportunities, would then be identified as Step 3.

As already reported, in March 2001, the first Step 2 meeting took place in Frascati (Rome), Italy.

DESG-Servier partnership meeting (STEP 2)
A second Step 2, DESG/Servier partnership meeting was held in Frascati (Rome) from March 16-22, 2002, in order to present the DESG Basic Curriculum to a group of doctors, nurses, dieticians and psychologists coming from 20 Countries (Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, UK, and Venezuela).

During the 6-day workshop several modules of the DESG Curriculum were fully implemented, and others were presented and discussed.

The diabetes professionals who attended the workshop are expected to implement such training Curriculum in their respective Countries (Step 3).

To our knowledge, partial implementations of the curriculum have already taken place, e.g. in Austria and the UAE and several others are being planned. In some countries the implementation will be preceded by a local Step-2 phase; this was the case in Argentina in 2001 and is planned in Venezuela for November 2002.

PUBLICATION AND UPDATE OF TEACHING LETTERS
Two Teaching Letters have been produced this year:
No.25 entitled '?Use, misuse and abuse of AV aids'; (update)
No.26 entitled 'Education to the use of hi-tech devices"; (New)

The next to be published are:
No.27 entitled 'Physical activity and diabetes' (New)
No.28 entitled 'Awareness of emotions and emotional intelligence in diabetes care' (New)

These Teaching Letters have been or will be produced with the help of the current sponsor, Servier, and all DESG members will receive copies.

They, as well as other DESG productions, are being made available for consultation and free download on the DESG Website, in Acrobat (.pdf) format.

PATIENT EDUCATION BASICS
This series of documents on different topics involving basic therapeutic education for people with type 2 diabetes, initiated in 1997 as the fruit of a stricter collaboration between DESG and Servier, is being continued. Their aim is to provide easy-to-use educational tools for the Health Care Providers wishing to educate the diabetic patient, but who are unable to find time for a thorough systematic approach. In each of them the most essential messages are summarised and illustrated by drawings.

The Patient Education Basics issues produced this year were the following:
No.15 'Losing weight: Mission possible';
No.16 'Diabetes and the other Risk Factors';

This year, two more Patient Education Basics will be published:
No.17 'The risk of transmitting diabetes to your children';
No.18 'Drugs for type 2 Diabetes';

These documents are also being made available for consultation and free download on the DESG Website, in Acrobat (.pdf) format.

DESG INQUIRY ON HCPS' EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
In June 2000, a 26-item questionnaire was published on the DESG Website to evaluate the need of training/updating in topics relevant to Therapeutic Patient Education, as perceived by the Health Care Providers worldwide.

The final results, based on 3091 questionnaires, have been presented during the Frascati workshop in March 2002, and have been published on the DESG website.

These results may allow, at least in some countries, to plan training curricula on Therapeutic Patient Education starting from the skills that are perceived as more urgent to acquire by the Health Care Providers themselves.

DESG WEBSITE
The DESG Website (http://www.desg.org), created by a DESG working group, and officially opened on September 1st, 1999, has completed its third year of activity.

Following the rapid evolution of the internet, last year the Website was completely redesigned, while keeping its original structure. The changes have made the site more intuitive and easier to navigate.

As before, both the General Committee members' list and the complete list of members are in a restricted area of the site, accessible to members only. The majority of the site is still open and offers a source of information, publications, education tools, and a variety of material produced either by the DESG or by others in the field of therapeutic patient education. In particular, the DESG Teaching Letters, 5-minute survival kit, and Patient Education Basics are regularly published in the "materials" section and are made available in text or Acrobat (.pdf) format.

Sections dedicated to national study groups, and different translations of DESG documents, are soon going to be published on the Website.

UPTADED LIST OF MEMBERS
The updated list consists of 787 members from 81 countries. This list is available in the members' area of the DESG Website, as well as the list of the General Committee members, 53 from 29 countries.

For privacy reasons, only the names and contact information of current Executive Committee members can be viewed by the general public.

PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND AWARDS
Participation in Grimentz Workshops
Grimentz Seminars continue to represent a unique model for the interactive learning of specific educational skills. The DESG once again this year provided the funding for a few members' participation in two workshops held in Grimentz from 15- 20 June, and 22-27 June 2002. The workshops were organised by Dr Alain Golay and Prof. Jean-Philippe Assal, respectively.

The first seminar was entitled "Du désir au plaisir de changer. Renforcer la motivation en faisant émerger le plaisir de changer chez un patient atteint d'une maladie chronique : diabète, obésité, alcoolisme". The participants included about 50 doctors, nurses, psychologists, pedagogues, dieticians, etc.

The second seminar was entitled "Les dimensions du temps en thérapeutique. Du diagnostic au suivi à long-terme :l'éventail des temps. Du malade au soignant : les perceptions du temps". The participants included 60 health care providers.
The DESG covered the expenses of three participants to both seminars.

Participation in Geneva Diploma
An unprecedented request for financial help was made this year by a Portuguese member, for the partial coverage of his third year's attendance to the Geneva Diploma in therapeutic patient education. His request was strongly supported by the President of the Diploma, Jean Philippe Assal.

A fortunate conjunction of events allowed the DESG to grant the requested amount of euros 4752.18. This contribution should be considered at present an exceptional event.

DESG Awards
In order to encourage research in the field of therapeutic patient education, according to a decision approved last year, two 600.00 Euro awards have been assigned by the DESG to the best abstracts submitted respectively to the 38th EASD Congress, and to the Budapest FEND Conference. The choice has been made by two joint DESG-FEND commissions.

SPONSORSHIP OF THE DESG
The generous sponsorship of Servier has been confirmed for the next years and continues to be of utmost importance to this Study Group. In addition to the already mentioned Servier Board, I wish to thank particularly Mr Oliver Kirst and Dr Bartek Zmigrodski, who have been an excellent interface between Servier and DESG in the last three years, recently joined by Dr Aurelien Caillaud, and who due to important career advancements, have recently been replaced by dr Bertrand Renaud and dr Nienke Feenstra respectively. To them and to the DESG the wish of a most fruitful cooperation in the coming years.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES
Workshop of General Committee Members, 2-7 November, 2002
A 5 day workshop will take place in Celano (Italy) from 2-7 November this year, to which all members of the General Committee are invited.

The workshop will deal with some of the main current challenges in the field of TPE: namely Overweight, Exercise, COH counting, Pump therapy. Each day will be devoted to the analysis of the most appropriate educational methods for each of those four main topics.

New DESG-Servier Partnership Workshop
A new international Step 2 DESG/SERVIER Partnership meeting is planned for March 2003.
Based on the needs expressed by the HCPs, and the modular structure proposed by the DESG, both Local Step 2 Workshops and Step 3 Curriculum implementations are being planned in several countries. The DESG contribution to these national or local activities, ranging from the planning phase, to the implementation, and to the evaluation phase, is possible.

Despite some delay, due to a change of personnel in the Rome secretariat and a rearrangement of the webmaster's company, one of the main activities for the future keeps being the improvement of the DESG Website, with the aim of making it a more functional tool of patient education and communication for the health care providers involved in diabetes therapeutic education.

The promotion of research and training in therapeutic patient education will be continued, also by means of grants and awards.

New Teaching Letters and Patient Education Basics will be published and distributed.

Prof. Aldo MALDONATO
President, Diabetes Education Study Group
September, 2002