[Efficiency of therapeutic education].

Therapeutic patient education has been developed over more than 30 years, to better treat chronic patients. The purpose of this article is to summarize its efficiency, based on recent meta-analysis publications. This analysis reflects more than 500 studies concerning ten diseases. It appears that the educative interventions are poorly described and that it is frequent that the control group also received some basic education. Despite these biases, the efficiency of the therapeutic patient education is clearly demonstrated in the majority of the studies (60%), whatever the pathologies or indicators are. Concerning obesity, one can find exactly the same tendency, with consequent and long lasting weight losses.