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BACKGROUND/RATIONALE:
Diabetes is a common, morbid and expensive disease among veterans. Achieving and maintaining adequate glycemic control can reduce the devastating complications of diabetes. Unfortunately a large percentage of veterans with type 2 diabetes continue to have poorly controlled blood sugars. Insulin is the most potent medication for reducing glycemia, but is not used often enough due to barriers that are both patient and provider driven.
We are conducting a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of establishing an insulin education group that would serve to educate patients about insulin, to initiate insulin in a group setting, and to provide appropriate follow-up of those who start insulin. If the intervention is successful, we plan to develop a multicenter study to test rigorously the effect of this approach.
OBJECTIVE(S):
Specific Aims:
To determine if psychological barriers to insulin initiation in patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes are favorably affected by a group insulin education and insulin initiation visit, as measured by the Barriers to Insulin Treatment (BIT) Questionairre before and after the intervention.
To evaluate the feasibility of the intervention as measured by the percent of patients who are referred to the class, but either cancel without rescheduling or fail to report and the percent of patients who begin insulin.
To evaluate the safety of the intervention as measured by the proportion of patients experiencing hypoglycemic symptoms; proportion of patients requiring sugar intake to manage hypoglycemia; and the proportion of patients requiring assistance to manage hypoglycemia.
METHODS:
This is an uncontrolled pre-post pilot study of a group insulin education intervention. It will be conducted at the Richmond VAMC.
FINDINGS/RESULTS:
No results at this time.
IMPACT:
Achieving and maintaining adequate glycemic control can reduce complications of diabetes. Insulin is the most potent medication for reducing glycemia, but is not used often enough. Therefore, we need to find innovative ways to help patients and providers safely start insulin. If this study is not successful, then we can look to other ways to accomplish this. If this study is successful, then we can test the effectiveness of these group visits in a more vigorous randomized, controlled trial.
PUBLICATIONS:
None at this time.
DRA:
none
DRE:
none
Keywords:
none
MeSH Terms:
none
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