Cost of diabetes mellitus type 1 treatment: difficulties of the families

Objectives: To know the family income of diabetic patients and the places where they acquire/purchase the syringes, and to analyze the cost of treating the disease at home and the consequences of such costs. Methods: Descriptive, analytical, cross-section study, which interviewed 199 patients cared for at a large pediatric school hospital in Sao Paulo in 2004. Results: The predominant family income varied between one and two times the minimum wage (48.8%). Materials to apply insulin were acquired/purchased at the pharmacy (56.3%) and the Basic Healthcare Units (25.1%). The population would spend from R$ 20.00 to R$ 79.00 (US$ 8 to US$ 27) in syringes every month. Conclusion: Patients and guardians were forced to reuse the syringes in 76.8% of the cases to decrease their expenditure with the disease, making this a common practice in diabetes treatment.