An Expert Opinion on “Glycemic Happiness”: Delineating the Concept and Determinant Factors for Persons with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

The importance of the psychological impact of diabetes is globally well-documented. Evidence suggests that there is a high level of psychosocial burden of diabetes in India. Moreover, there is a lack of relevant knowledge among the patients and caregivers regarding the psychological impact of diabetes and how to cope with it, as compared to the majority of other countries. “Happiness of the patient” is an essential component of diabetes management, which potentially affects the treatment outcome, treatment adherence, self-care, and lifelong management of diabetes. Although several validated tools and scales exist for measuring psychological outcomes both in patients and physicians, tools to assess “happiness in diabetes care” are still lacking. With this background, an expert group meeting was held in India in September 2019, involving nine expert diabetologists and endocrinologists across the country to discuss the concept of “glycemic happiness”. This article summarizes the expert opinion on the factors affecting psychological outcomes in diabetes, introduces the concept of glycemic happiness, describes available scales and tools to measure general happiness, and delineates the five sets of questionnaires developed with questions that may help correlate with “glycemic happiness”. The questionnaires are based on a five-point Likert method. The experts also discussed and decided upon the study design for a proposed observational survey to assess glycemic happiness of persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) based on the developed five sets of questionnaires. Given the huge burden of diabetes in India, the introduction of the concept of glycemic happiness will help in the optimization of diabetes care in the country.