Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a chronic disease, observed mainly in children or young people, with an increasingly high incidence in young children. Structured therapeutic patient education is a must to help them manage their disease effectively and lead a healthy lifestyle. This study aimed to assess a therapeutic patient education program effects on glycemic parameters and quality of life in children and adolescents with T1DM.

It's a quasi-experimental study conducted with 100 T1DM children and adolescents, aged 8 to 18, who participated in a therapeutic patient education intervention at the pediatric department in the prefectural hospital center Ibn Al-Khatib in Fez, Maroc. Glycemic marquers were meseared and quality of life was assessed by a validated questionnaire (PedsQL 3.0).

At 3 months follow-up after a therapeutic patient education intervention, both global and dimensional quality of life mean scores improved significantly (p = 0.000), whereas HbA1c decreased, tough with no statistical significance (p=0.160). However, there was a significant improvement in the maximum preprandial (p=0.001) and postprandial blood glucose levels (p=0.001) after 3 months; with no significant change in their minimum (respectivly p=0.257 and p=0.665).

Although this TPE intervention was more effective in improving patients’ quality of life than their HbA1c, it is worth striving to implement regular TPE programs for T1DM pediatric patients and adjust them to achieve a better patients’ glycemic marquers levels.