Satisfaction of well-controlled type 2 diabetes patients with three-monthly and six-monthly monitoring

BACKGROUND: Patient’s satisfaction with monitoring frequency is of interest when implementing six-monthly monitoring for well-controlled type 2 diabetes patients. Here we want to determine the satisfaction of well-controlled type 2 diabetes patients with either three-monthly or six-monthly diabetes monitoring and their future preference. METHODS: Survey among 2215 well-controlled type 2 diabetes patients (not using insulin, HbA1c ≤58 mmol/mol, systolic blood pressure ≤145 mmHg and total cholesterol ≤5.2 mmol/l) who participated in the EFFIMODI study, a randomised controlled patient-preference equivalence trial. At baseline, participants were asked whether they had a strong preference for three-monthly or six-monthly monitoring or not. If not, they were randomised to either three-monthly or six-monthly monitoring, while the others were monitored according to their preference. After eighteen months, all participants were asked whether they were satisfied with the monitoring frequency and about their future preference. Patient characteristics associated with satisfaction were also examined. RESULTS: Most patients (70.8%) would like to continue their monitoring frequency. Patients from the preference groups were more often satisfied than randomised patients (92.7% and 88.1%, respectively) and patients monitored three-monthly were more often satisfied than patients monitored six-monthly (93.5% and 88.5%, respectively). Higher age, better physical health, less diabetes-related distress, higher diabetes treatment satisfaction and less perceived hyper- and hypoglycaemias were associated with a higher monitoring satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: Most well-controlled type 2 diabetes patients were satisfied with their monitoring frequency and would like to continue it. Although the satisfaction for three-monthly monitoring was slightly higher, the satisfaction with six-monthly monitoring was still rather high (88.5%). TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current controlled trials ISRCTN93201802.