World Diabetes Day – Screening – Bulgaria (AMSB)

Name of the activity: World Diabetes Day – Screening

Country/NMO: Bulgaria (AMSB)

Program: Healthy Lifestyles & Non-Communicable Diseases

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

Our activity will consist of a pre-event practical workshop for the medical students. It will have a theoretical part – a lecture about diabetes and its complications, which will be followed by a practical seminar on how to measure blood pressure and glucose levels with the devices provided to us by our partners. The next part of our activity will be an event in a chosen place in the city where the medical students will use their acquired knowledge and screen the citizens, administer quizzes and give advice on healthy lifestyle choices.

Focus area:

Diabetes

Problem statement:

If left uncontrolled, diabetes is a condition that can damage your heart, eyes, blood vessels, and nerves. This makes it essential for people to undergo screening earlier and take steps to prevent it if they’re discovered to be at an increased risk. Prophylaxis can be extremely beneficial when it comes to this metabolic disease, because a reduction in body weight of just 5-7% can prevent diabetes and provide decreased insulin resistance and better glucose control. This is very important for Bulgaria as well, because in 2017 there were 424,300 cases of diabetes in the country. According to the Bulgarian Diabetes Association the age of patients in Bulgaria has been steadily dropping, with the youngest registered child with diabetes being only 8 months old. Another startling discovery was that over 40% of the people with diabetes in Bulgaria aren’t aware of their condition. This makes a campaign like ours highly necessary.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The target group are the Bulgarian citizens in the cities where the activity will take place. We will measure the glucose levels and blood pressure of the people who want to be tested at our stands. The beneficiaries will be the people who get tested and find out they’re at increased risk of diabetes – they’ll receive information and brochures about the steps they can do to prevent the disease and its complications, which will help them take precautions and improve their lifestyle.

Objectives and indicators of success:

– Increase people’s knowledge of diabetes – indicators would be quizzes before and after the screening
– Register diabetes in people who weren’t aware they had it – indicators would be the spreadsheets with the registered measurements
– Improve medical students’ practical skills – have a seminar before the activity which is practice-oriented and teaches the students how to correctly perform the needed measurements

Methodology:

Quizzes will be given to the participants before and after their screening, and the medium increase in correct answers will be registered. This will show whether the activity increased people’s awareness and knowledge of diabetes. We will also create spreadsheets with the measurements of every person who gets screened and note down any newly discovered diabetes. We will also create feedback forms for the students on which they can note down if the practical workshop improved their abilities.

Plans for evaluation:

Comparing information from before and after the activity is a central part of measuring its success and effectiveness. We will gather information from quizzes administered prior to and after the event, and the results from them will be transferred into spreadsheets. They will allow us to summarize the data and create charts and visual representations of our results.