Characteristics of assistance to patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus served in family health strategies in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic non-communicable disease that has been growing and gaining concern in recent decades.The objective was to describe the conditions for monitoring users with type 2 diabetes mellitus in ten Family Health Strategies (FHS), in the city of Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil.It was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out with 611 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, with secondary data from medical records, which were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire containing socioeconomic variables and monitoring of the disease.The results indicated that most were 60 years of age or older and were female.We found that 5.4% patients were smokers, 6.8% were alcoholics, having an association with adults and 10.2% practiced some type of physical activity, 88.74% had 5 years or more of treatment in the FHS and 70.31% of patients had 5 years or more of diabetes diagnosis.Regarding consultations for monitoring the disease, 58.24% had two or more consultations in Primary Care and 5.06% had a record of risk stratification, in addition to low adherence to the reference and counter-reference system.As for antidiabetic drugs, most used oral drugs and the most common comorbidity associated with diabetes was arterial hypertension.We concluded that the attention to male patients needs to be expanded, as the attention to people with diabetes in Primary Care needs to be more qualified for the secondary and tertiary prevention of the disease.