[Quality control of the self-measurement of blood sugar in unselected type I diabetics. The importance of patient training].

Unselected type I diabetics were hospitalized for group training and treatment programme during which blood-sugar was self-monitored with the Haemo-Glukotest 20-800; quality of self-monitoring improved appropriately. The patients had taken part in either the standard training programme (67 patients) or in the "intensive" training programme (101 patients). At the beginning of the training week, after the first theoretical and practical instructions, the quality of blood-sugar self-monitoring was equally poor among patients of both programmes. At the end of the "standard" training week, self-monitoring results were still unsatisfactory, though slightly better than at the onset. Because of these poor results, the training programme was intensified. Optimal quality of self-monitoring was then achieved at the end of the training period. In 69 others, also unselected, type I diabetics the quality of self-monitoring was determined 14 months after their participation in the training programme. Using the Haemo-Glukotest 20-800 (57 patients), self-monitoring gave excellent results; using a blood-glucose measuring instrument (12 patients) it was slightly worse. Assuming intensive training, even unselected type I diabetics can obtain accurate blood-sugar measurements using test-strips.