Contacting dropouts from type 2 diabetes care in public primary health care: description of the patient population

Abstract

Objective: To characterize dropouts from type-2 diabetes (T2D) care in communal primary health care. Design: An observational study. Setting: In a Finnish city, patients with T2D who had not contacted the public primary health care system during the past 12 months were identified with a computer based search and contacted by a trained diabetes nurse. Subjects: Dropouts from T2D treatment. Main outcome measures: Demographic factors, laboratory parameters, examinations, medications, and comorbidities. Results: Of the patients with T2D, 10% (n = 356) were dropouts and 60% of them were men. Median HbA1c was 6.5 (QR for 25% and 75%: 6.0, 7.7) %, (45 [42,61] mmol/mol). Of the dropouts, 14% had HbA1c ≥ 9.0% (75 mmol/mol), and these patients were younger than the other dropouts (mean age 54.4 [SD 10.8] years vs. 60.6 [9.4] years, p 9% (75 mmol/mol) and they were more often younger than the other dropouts.

Keywords

• Characteristics
• comorbidities
• dropout
• Finland
• general practice
• type 2 diabetes