This work was carried out taking into consideration our concern about the costs of the treatment of diabetics at ambulatorial levei, mainly with respect to the diet, specific medicines, equipment for insulin application and reactive strips, done through domicilary assistance. We report on how much a diabetic spends, taking into account an average of these aspects, and on the orientation given by the oHice nurse to the patients in order to help them minimize the costs of the treatment. With lhe purpose of getting sue h data, we did a retrospective survey on 144 records of diabetics assisted in an Adult Health Program of a hospital school in this c ity, reaching 17% of the total number of patients assisted in a period of 4 years.

O trabalho foi efetuado considerando nossa preocupa-ção relativa ao custo do tratamento do diabético a nível ambulato-rial, principalmente ao que se refere a dieta, medicamentos especr-ficos, aparelho para aplicação de insulin a e fitas reagentes, reali-zados à domicOio. Relr~tamos quanto gasta um diabético conside-rando a média destes aspectos e o que a enfermeira do consultório orienta a clientela para minimizar os custos do tratamento. Para tanto fizemos um estudo retrospectivo em 144 prontuários de dia-béticos atendidos num Programa de Saúde do Adulto de um Hos-pital-E scola da c1dade, perfazendo 17°o do total da clientela atendi-da em 4 anos.