Evaluation of the telephone intervention in the promotion of diabetes self-care: a randomized clinical trial

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the effectiveness of the telephone intervention for promoting self-care related to physical activity and following a diet plan in users with diabetes, compared to conventional monitoring of users over a six-month period. METHOD: this was a randomized clinical trial, which included 210 users with diabetes, linked to eight Primary Health Units of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The experimental group (104 members) received six telephone interventions over the six-month monitoring; the control group (106 members) received conventional monitoring. To evaluate the self-care practices related to physical activity and following a healthy eating plan, in both groups, the self-care questionnaire was applied before the intervention and at three and six months after its start. RESULTS: the mean effect of self-care scores in the experimental group was 1.03 to 1.78 higher than the control group, with progressive and significant improvement (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: the results indicate that the telephone intervention had a beneficial effect on diabetes self-care. The primary identifier of the clinical trials registry was: RBR-8wx7qb.