The Psychosocial Needs of Patients Participating in Diabetes Shared Medical Appointments

Patient reported outcomes (PROs) for diabetes are self-reported and often give insight into outcomes important to people with diabetes. Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) see patients who may have higher levels of diabetes distress and lower levels of self-care behaviors.

The Invested in Diabetes study is a comparative effectiveness trial of diabetes Shared Medical Appointments (SMAs) in FQHCs and non-FQHC settings. PROs measure outcomes including validated measures on diabetes distress.

616 people from 22 practices completed PROs prior to SMAs. At FQHCs, participants were younger (average 57.7 years vs 66.9 years, p < 0.0001), more likely to be female (36.8% vs 46.1%, p = 0.02), and fewer spoke English (72.7% vs 99.6%, p < 0.0001).

At FQHCs, diabetes distress was higher (2.1 vs 1.8, P = .02), more people were current smokers (14.3% vs 4.7%, P = .0002), on insulin (48.9% vs 22.3%, P < .0001) and reported food insecurity (52.7% vs 26.2%, P < .0001). After controlling for sociodemographic factors, these differences were nonsignificant.

Higher numbers of patients at FQHCs report diabetes distress and food insecurity compared with patients in non-FQHC settings, indicating that patient social circumstances need to be considered as part of program implementation.