Abstract
Background: Over 180 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus worldwide, with this number expected to more than double by 2030. Due to the increasing mortality and morbidity associated with this epidemic, the improved primary-care management of diabetes during routine office visits remains an emerging international challenge.
Objective: To report the results of a series of exploratory semi-structured group interview sessions with a sample of 44 American adults with type 2 diabetes, concerning their diabetes management perceptions and office-based diabetes care processes.
Methods: A total of 44 adults from a Midwest Internal Medicine Clinic were interviewed during 2004 and 2005 before starting a larger, quantitative, shared decision-making intervention study. During group interviews, participants offered their perceptions of their self-management practices, interactions with office clinicians, and diabetes-related health outcomes to date. A total of 178 audio-taped interview comments (across 44 participants) were transcribed and analyzed for core themes and sub-themes.
Results: Many participants reported frustrating experiences regarding the relationship between their personal diabetes self-management practices and typical office visit interactions with clinicians. Most participants perceived these diabetes management processes as inherently different from each other. Many participants were intrigued with the proposed shared decision-making management approach of the larger intervention study.
Conclusions: Primary-care clinicians should assess how patients may perceive their self-management strategies relate to office-based diabetes care processes. Patients’ self-management beliefs and practices should be routinely evaluated since they frequently affect the nature of key diabetes care office visit decisions. These qualitative results suggest that clinicians should convey the increasing interdependence between their patients’ daily diabetes self-management practices and contemporary office visit decision-making discussions.
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Corser, W., Lein, C., Holmes-Rovner, M. et al. Contemporary Adult Diabetes Mellitus Management Perceptions. Patient-Patient-Centered-Outcome-Res 3, 101–111 (2010). https://doi.org/10.2165/11318450-000000000-00000
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2165/11318450-000000000-00000