Abstract

CASTRO, Amparito del Rocio Vintimilla  and  GROSSI, Sonia Aurora Alves. Cost of diabetes mellitus type 1 treatment: difficulties of the families. Acta paul. enferm. [online]. 2008, vol.21, n.4, pp. 624-628. ISSN 1982-0194.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0103-21002008000400014.

OBJECTIVES: To know the family income of diabetic patients and the places where they acquire/purchase the syringes, and to analyze the cost of treating the disease at home and the consequences of such costs. METHODS: Descriptive, analytical, cross-section study, which interviewed 199 patients cared for at a large pediatric school hospital in São Paulo in 2004. RESULTS: The predominant family income varied between one and two times the minimum wage (48.8%). Materials to apply insulin were acquired/purchased at the pharmacy (56.3%) and the Basic Healthcare Units (25.1%). The population would spend from R$ 20.00 to R$ 79.00 (US$ 8 to US$ 27) in syringes every month. CONCLUSION: Patients and guardians were forced to reuse the syringes in 76.8% of the cases to decrease their expenditure with the disease, making this a common practice in diabetes treatment.

Keywords : Cost of illness; Diabetes Mellitus [economics]; Residential treatment [economics].