Caracterização da adesão ao acompanhamento nutricional por adultos com diabetes mellitus tipo1 durante a pandemia de covid-19 no Brasil

Abstract

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease with complex treatment, therefore, it is believed that adherence to nutritional treatment has been impaired during the Covid-19 pandemic. Maintaining nutritional care online is a strategy to improve adherence to healthy eating, which improves glycemic control and prevents clinical complications of DM. The objective of this study was to characterize adherence to nutritional monitoring of adults living with DM1 during the COVID- 19 pandemic in Brazil. This is a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study, carried out in July 2020. An online form was used to collect sociodemographic and economic data, characteristics of nutritional monitoring and eating habits, as well as social distancing of adults diagnosed with DM1 residents in Brazil. Pearson's Chi-Square test was applied, with adjusted residual analysis, considering a statistical significance level of p<0.05. Of the 472 participants, 86.02% were female, 62.50% lived in the capital or metropolitan region and 32.42% had a family income between 3 and 5 minimum wages. When evaluating nutritional monitoring, 62.08% did not undertake and maintained non-adherence to nutritional monitoring during the pandemic, 4.66% of participants maintained nutritional monitoring online and 2.12% maintained these consultations in person. Having better education (p=0.048) and income (p=0.009) was associated with maintaining online nutritional monitoring. A positive association was found between adequate consumption of fruits (p=0.001) and vegetables (p=0.049) and maintaining online or in-person and online nutritional monitoring. There was a positive association between starting face-to-face nutritional monitoring and consuming less food via delivery (p=0.024). Maintaining or starting to follow-up in person or online was associated with adhering to carbohydrate counting (p=0.047). Adhering to telenutrition consultations is an innovative and complementary alternative to DM healthcare.