Patient-important outcomes to inform shared decision making and goal setting for diabetes treatment

Despite well-established treatment guidelines, diabetes is difficult to manage for many individuals. The importance of using shared decision making to optimize diabetes treatment is recognized, yet what matters most to individuals with diabetes is not well established. Our goal was to identify patients' goals and priorities for diabetes management.

We engaged 141 participants through interviews and group concept mapping to identify patient-important outcomes (PIOs) for diabetes care. We generated a master list of PIOs by aggregating interview data coded to "goals" and ideas brainstormed during concept mapping, and then a patient advisory board sorted the PIOs into higher-level domains.

We identified 41 PIOs sorted into 7 broad domains: optimize daily self-care, optimize long term health, learn about diabetes, achieve measurable goals, manage medications, manage diet and best utilize medical / professional services.

Most (4/7) of PIO domains focused on personal and life goals, not medically-oriented goals. Use of these PIOs and domains may facilitate more effective SDM discussions for patients with diabetes.

Use of PIOs from this work can enable the empowerment of patients to voice their priorities during SDM conversations, thus facilitating development of truly individualized diabetes treatment plans.