Abstract
This article analyzes the significance that health professionals attribute to health education groups for people with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). This ethnographic study was developed with five professionals from an Expanded Family Health team that operated in five diabetes health education groups. Information was gathered using participant observations and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed by means of a thematic coding technique. Three different categories emerged: (1) It is a way of educating them: groups as an educational and clinical monitoring forum; (2) they know I will be there for them: the groups as a resource to access the health system; and (3) this serves as a self-help group: after all, what purpose does this group serve? The conclusion reached is that the groups studied were a therapy and support hybrid that, by means of their structure, made it possible for the informants (perhaps, also for the patients) to construct other significance for the standardization of health policies and the dilemma of chronicity. Such hybridization made it possible to create outcomes for the specificities of health work in a “total life” context.
Health education; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; Medical anthropology; Self-help groups
