Table 4 Design of the patient education program following the reporting guidelines for behavior change interventions developed by WIDER

Characteristics of those delivering the education

A multidisciplinary team of healthcare providers will deliver the education program, including physiotherapists, physicians, pharmacists, dietitians, and physical educators. These professionals attended capacity building sessions to understand patient and family education and counseling concepts and to increase knowledge, skills, and resources regarding adult learning principles and diabetes care.

Characteristics of the recipients

This education program was designed for adults with diabetes or prediabetes.

The setting

This program will be delivered as part of an Exercise and Lifestyle Education Program in two cities in Brazil. Classes will take place in a private room with a maximum of 10 patients in each class, preferably prior to the exercise component of the program.

Mode of delivery

Sessions will include all four categories of teaching methods reported in the literature (instructor-centered, interactive, individualized techniques, and experiential learning). All participants will receive the patient guide and will be oriented to read different chapters each week.

Frequency

It will be offered through 18 education classes, and the schedule of these classes is described in Table 5. These classes will be delivered as part of a 12-week education intervention: in the first 4 weeks with two classes per week and the remaining with 1 class per week.

Duration

Educational sessions will be 30 min long, except for the orientation (1st session) and the diabetes medication session, which will be 1-h long. This change was based on the results of the needs analysis.

Adherence to delivery intervention

A healthcare team member will register the attendance of participants, as well as their family members, at the starting of each class. Also, a lesson plan was developed for each class, which states program learning outcomes, session learning outcomes, the structure of classes, and suggested activities.

Detailed description of the intervention content

The content of each class is based on the five pillars of Diabetes College. The classes were structured based on the needs analysis. Topics are described in Table 5.