The participants in the usual assessment were provided regular care, including at least one medical appointment every six months with prescription review.

The participants in the multidisciplinary assessment were followed by teams from the study target-units, by individual and collective interviews, which mirror the care protocol. The frequency of individual visits was at least every six months by a nurse, a physician, and a nutritionist. Regarding the collective activities, the educational groups met for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes on monthly basis over a period of six months. Considering that there were two FHU in the IG, each team held one activity per month. For the development of the collective activities, methods recognized for intensifying integration and participation, such as using simple language and confirming the participants' understanding of the information covered in the group were recommended.

The participants in the multidisciplinary assessment were followed by multidisciplinary teams from the study target-units, by individual and collective interviews, which mirror the care protocol. The frequency of individual visits was at least every six months by a nurse, a physician, and a nutritionist.

Regarding the collective activities, the educational groups met for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes on monthly basis over a period of six months. Considering that there were two FHU in the IG, each team held one activity per month.

For the development of the collective activities, methods recognized for intensifying integration and participation, such as using simple language and confirming the participants' understanding of the information covered in the group were recommended.

The HLQ (Osborne et al.,2013) consists of 9 scales representing 9 dimensions of health literacy: Feeling understood and supported by healthcare providers; Having sufficient information to manage my health;Actively managing my health;Social support for health;Appraisal of health information;Ability to actively engage with healthcare providers;Navigating the healthcare system;Ability to find good health information;Understand health information well enough to know what to do.

Each HLQ scale has 4-6 items. The HLQ does not provide one overall summative score. The scoring of the HLQ is 9 scale scores, calculated by averaging the item scores within each scale with equal weighting. The 9 scale scores will reflect a person's strengths and needs in the different dimensions of health literacy, with higher scores meaning greater health literacy.

For Scales 1 to 5, the score range is between 1 and 4 (4 response options). For Scales 6 to 9, the score range is between 1 and 5 (5 response options).

Knowledge about DM will be measured by the Diabetes Knowledge Scale (DKN-A). The DKN-A, with 15 multiple-choice questions, addresses several aspects related to general knowledge of diabetes, through 5 categories: a) basic physiology, including the action of insulin; b) hypoglycemia; c) food groups and their replacements; d) management of diabetes in the presence of another disease; e) general principles for disease care. The measurement scale is 0-15 and each item has the following score: one (1) for a correct answer and zero (0) for an incorrect answer. Items 1 to 12 require a single correct answer. For questions 13 to 15, two answers are correct and both must be correct to obtain a score of one. A score of 0 to 8 points indicates little knowledge and greater than 8 points indicates good knowledge about diabetes (Dunn et al., 1984).