Some patient needs not addressed in diabetes care

Crucial gaps remain between the perspectives of patients living with type 2 diabetes and healthcare providers, a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a qualitative analysis, enrolling 19 type 2 diabetes patients across three focus groups. In parallel, the studies also surveyed two experts’ panels and healthcare providers (n=23) to see the concordance between patient and expert perspectives.

Discussions yielded four overall domains that patients deemed valuable to them. The first pertained to the challenges of living with their disease and included issues surrounding physical function, sexual dysfunction, difficulties in adopting healthy lifestyles, and the financial burden associated with diabetes care.

The second theme revolved around mental health issues, including depression, distress, anxiety, fear, frustration, and loneliness. Psychological difficulties often pertained to the difficulties of changing their lifestyles and fear that they may need drastic surgeries later on.

The third domain was the ability to self-manage the disease, including the patients’ capacity to change their lifestyle, avail of and adjust to treatment, and level of knowledge about diabetes.

The final theme focused on the relationship between patient and clinician, which mostly tackled the level of devotion clinicians showed their patients, shared decision-making, and the patients’ trust in their care providers.

“There are content gaps between perspectives of people with type 2 diabetes and their healthcare providers,” the researchers said. “Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are essential for people with type 2 diabetes and healthcare providers in addressing issues largely not addressed in routine diabetes care and were missed in provider-influenced PROMs.”