Diabetes education on Turkish immigrant diabetics: predictors of compliance

A controlled experiment on the effect of ethnic specific diabetes education in Turkish type 2 diabetics revealed substantial problems with compliance. The cost effectiveness of such a programme would improve if patients most likely to dropout or overuse the education facility could be identified. The 45 patients of the intervention group were categorized into three groups: non-compliers, compliers and over-compliers, and we assessed the association between patient characteristics and these three groups. Compared to the compliers, non-compliers had a longer history of diabetes and poorer knowledge of diabetes. Over-compliers were more often younger, female, scored low on attitude or self-efficacy, and experienced more stress. Turkish patients having diabetes for a longer period or with poor knowledge of diabetes are at risk to dropout from the programme, while younger Turkish females scoring low on attitude or self-efficacy as well as those with more stress, are more likely to over-use the education facility.