Patient perspectives of diabetes care and education

Educating and supporting patients in managing their daily life with diabetes mellitus are important goals of diabetes care today. These goals demand not only good medical knowledge but also good communication skills in the members of the diabetes care team and in the patients. Continuity and accessibility are naturally factors influencing the communication between the patients and the care team. This study, based on 55 interviews with well-experienced insulin-dependent diabetic patients, shows further that the contacts between the diabetes care system and the patient are often only superficial and in practice mainly related to the patient's metabolic control. Patients with good or acceptable metabolic control experience positive feed-back from the care team, while those with unsatisfactory or unacceptable metabolic control do not receive positive response and support to the same degree. The patients want to be permitted to be responsible for themselves and need support from the care team in order to accomplish this. From the patient's perspective, the diabetes education consists of an overwhelming amount of new information which often is presented on only one occasion. The patients want the education to be on an acceptable but minimum level and to be a continuous process that is applicable in practice.