Currently, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in Mexico is the third leading cause of mortality in men and the second leading cause in women. Furthermore, due to the inadequate management of T2DM during the Covid-19 pandemic, an excess mortality of 35.6% was observed in the January-August 2020 period. The impact of the disease on people's health is also reflected in morbidity through diabetic complications and comorbidities related to T2DM such as cardiovascular diseases, dyslipidemias, overweight and obesity. In the case of diabetic comorbidities and complications it must be considered that sometimes they are not really due to inadequate self-care on the part of the patient, but are part of the natural progression of the disease as each person ages. However, whether the origin of diabetic complications is due to the patient's inadequate self-care behaviors or to the natural progression of the disease, the person with T2DM needs to receive comprehensive guidance to cope with disease conditions, treatment and self-care through prevention strategies and diabetes education.
In this regard, over the last decade, the Mexican health system has made various efforts to address this issue. Either through national health care programs at the federal and state levels, or through the implementation of mexican Clinical Practice Guidelines (mCPG) for the management of patients with T2DM. However, despite these implementations, in a period of 9 years (2011-2020) an increase in the registered death rate due to T2DM has been observed from 7.0 per ten thousand inhabitants in 2011 to 8.2 in 2020, which suggests that a change in the practice of care directed to this population is necessary. Perhaps one of the main problems that prevents a change in practice is the belief that it is enough to simply provide people with information on health care so that they are able to implement it in their daily lives. However, for years it has been pointed out and demonstrated that this was not enough, but that it was also necessary to provide people with the appropriate strategies for the development of new care behaviors. To achieve this, the Latin American Diabetes Association has recommended that programs encourage the active participation of people with T2DM, a recommendation that is even reflected in some health programs in Mexico . This leads to the second problem that is hindering the development of true health care that fosters the active participation of its users: professional training. In Mexico, the psychology professional is considered as a healthcare provider only on the rehabilitation of the adult lower extremity amputee patient due to T2DM, in the follow-up of physical exercise prescription, as part of nursing interventions for the control of T2DM in adult population, and in the prevention and diagnosis of T2DM in pediatric patients. This occurs despite the fact that most programs and mCPGs emphasize the importance of psychological assessment and intervention for the modification of risk behaviors and the development of healthy habits. However, by not considering psychology professionals formally to carry out education strategies, these tasks are relegated to other professionals such as physicians, nurses, nutritionists and social workers who, although they have the training to provide information about diabetes, do not have adequate training to promote the necessary behavioral modification in the development of healthy habits and promote the active participation of patients with T2DM in the search for solutions to contextual barriers, promoting health care in their daily lives through deprofessionalization work.
It would be expected that this intervention model, by improving the TA of people with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, would improve the participants' evaluation of their quality of life in areas such as diabetes control, anxiety related to the disease, social burden, sexual function and energy, as well as in glycemic level, mainly. In addition, this type of intervention proposals can offer a double benefit in terms of Effectiveness by modifying those situational aspects that hinder an adequate adherence to treatment in people with T2DM; and in terms of Efficiency, by allowing to carry out a work where participants can be trained as health promoters, and thus increase the dissemination of health services through the mediation of participants in the sectors close to them and that, due to institutional limitations, this population does not have direct access to them.
