World Congress on
Diabetes and Endocrinology

Biography:

A dynamic Health Care executive over 15 years of diversified experience in Sales & Marketing, Development of Brand Strategies, Leading people, People Development and Project Management in reputed multinational pharmaceuticals companies. Strengths includes the ability to accurately assess situations, create a vision, make difficult decisions, collaborate with executive stakeholders, impeccably execute strategic and tactical plans, coach & develop current and future leaders. Presently, working as Head of Specialty Care at Sandoz division, Novartis Bangladesh Limited since December 2015. Previously worked at Sanofi Bangladesh Ltd. as Business Unit Manager, headed a team consists of Senior Product and Sales Managers including managing a diversified portfolios.

Abstract:

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) among adults in the South-East Asia region was estimated to be 8.5% in 2015 and is projected to rise to 10.7% by 2040 (IDF Diabetes ATLAS, 2015). Until a decade ago, diabetes was not considered a major public health problem in developing country, like Bangladesh. Treatment of type 2 diabetes with modern drugs may improve diabetes care; however, this therapy is far from preventing micro- or macro vascular complications effectively. This suggests that there is a strong need to intensify lifestyle intervention and motivate patients to better manage diabetes by themselves. A study was conducted in 2011 on impact of diabetes education program on knowledge and perception among type 2 diabetes in Bangladesh and found that diabetes education provided by professionals enhanced the knowledge of patients and changed their attitudes towards all aspects of DM though it did not help them to improve their diabetes self-care activities except only doing physical exercise and quieting smoking. A successful effective disease management depends on sustainable patient self-management behaviors, emotionally coping with severity of living with diabetes. For professional health workers, it is often impossible or too costly to provide this support on a one-on-one basis. Disease management approaches that incorporate peer support may be a promising way to provide self-management support to patients with diabetes. The World Health Organization (2007) defined “peer support” as an economic, flexible intervention for improving diabetes care and outcomes. In a simple word, people with diabetes could be chosen to educate other patients with diabetes is called peer support. Peers can provide ongoing support that is needed for sustained self-management of diabetes. In this context, peers are nonprofessionals who have diabetes. Key functions of effective peer support include assistance in daily management, social and emotional support, linkage to clinical care, and ongoing availability of support. Using these four functions as a template of peer support, we evaluated the effectiveness of a diabetes education program guided by the professionals vs peer leaders in improving diabetes care among patients with type 2 diabetes in Bangladesh in 2012. Our initial assessment found improvements in the glycemic management, blood pressure, body mass index, and understanding levels of the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes among those who failed to achieve the goals. Peers play a unique role that supplements and supports the clinical care. For policy makers, the broader message is that by emphasizing the role of peer support in diabetes care can be successfully achieve the self-management efficacy in patients with type 2 diabetes across varied cultural settings and within diverse healthcare systems.