[Evaluation of education of the diabetic. Quality control in diabetes therapy]

Any successful treatment of type-I diabetic patients has to be based upon a detailed education of the diabetic patient in order to enable him to selfmanage his disease as much as possible. The goals of diabetes-therapy (i.e. near-normalization of glycaemia in order to prevent diabetic microangiopathy at as high a quality of life as possible) can only be achieved by actively involving the patient in his/her therapy. Thus patient education becomes the cornerstone of modern diabetes-care. The evaluation of diabetes-education has--eventually--be based upon an assessment of the quality of metabolic control. A number of studies have proven that effective diabetes-education programmes can substantially improve long-term metabolic control and the incidence of acute complications in type I diabetic patients. At present, it appears that the most efficient way to improve the overall quality of diabetes-care is to improve diabetes-education delivered to the patients.