Lay perceptions of type 2 diabetes in Scotland: bringing health services back in

The growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes is placing Scottish health services under considerable strain. Consequently, diabetes services are undergoing a major process of reorganisation, including the devolvement of routine diabetes care/diabetic review from secondary to primary healthcare settings. This qualitative study was devised to explore newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients' perceptions of their disease and the health services they receive at a time when this restructuring of services is taking place. The sample comprised 40 patients resident in Lothian, Scotland, who had diverse experiences of services, some receiving GP-based care only, others having varying contact with hospital diabetes clinics. In-depth interviews were undertaken with patients, three times at six monthly intervals over 1 year, enabling their experiences to be tracked at critical junctures during the post-diagnostic period. Disease perceptions and health service delivery were found to be mutually informing and effecting. Not only did (different types of) health service delivery influence the ways in which patients thought about and self-managed their disease, over time patients' disease perceptions also informed their expectations of, and preferences for, diabetes services. We thus argue that there is a need for a reconceptualisation within the medical social sciences to take into account the context of healthcare and the economic/policy factors that inform health service delivery when looking at patients' disease perceptions. We also discuss the logistical and ethical challenges of drawing upon patients' perspectives, preferences and views in the design and delivery of future health services.     

Social work interventions in Sweden for patients newly diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes

We evaluated psychosocial work with patients in ordinary clinical practice who were newly diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes and experienced psychosocial problems at disease onset. We examined types of psychosocial problems, causes of these problems, psychosocial interventions, extent of achievement of psychosocial treatment goals, and whether the patients felt they benefited from the treatment. Eighty-nine working-age (18–65-year-old) Swedish adults newly diagnosed with diabetes were included. Each was interviewed and responded to questionnaires at the beginning and end of the study period. Thirty-four (38%) received psychosocial treatment as needed over 2 years. A psychosocial treatment plan with a defined goal was developed for each. Interventions included counseling, problem-focused support, social information, and advice. The treatment process was documented. Eighteen patients had type 1, and 16 had type 2 diabetes. One-third had emotional problems directly caused by receiving a diagnosis. Several of them had crisis reactions. The rest had problems primarily caused by their life situations. Those with psychosocial problems caused by receiving a diagnosis achieved treatment goals more frequently than the others. Distinguishing the cause of the psychosocial problems of newly diagnosed patients may help ensure that social work resources in health care are used as effectively as possible.     

Patients' perceptions and experiences of transitions in diabetes care: a longitudinal qualitative study

Objective  To examine patients' perceptions and experiences over time of the devolvement of diabetes care/reviews from secondary to primary health-care settings.
Design  Repeat in-depth interviews with 20 patients over 4 years.
Participants and setting  Twenty type 2 diabetes patients recruited from primary- and secondary-care settings across Lothian, Scotland.
Results  Patients' views about their current diabetes care were informed by their previous service contact. The devolvement of diabetes care/reviews to general practice was presented as a 'mixed blessing'. Patients gained reassurance from their perception that receiving practice-based care/reviews signified that their diabetes was well-controlled. However, they also expressed resentment that, by achieving good control, they received what they saw as inferior care and/or less-frequent reviews to others with poorer control. While patients tended to regard GPs as having adequate expertise to conduct their practice-based reviews, they were more ambivalent about nurses taking on this role. Opportunities to receive holistic care in general practice were not always realized due to patients seeing health-care professionals for diabetes management to whom they would not normally present for other health issues.
Conclusions  It is important to educate patients about their care pathways, and to reassure them that frequency of reviews depends more on clinical need than location of care and that similar care guidelines are followed in hospital clinics and general practice. A patients' history of service contact may need to be taken into account in future studies of service satisfaction.     

Is type-2 diabetes mellitus preventable?

The public health burden of type 2 diabetes mellitus has been dramatically increased worldwide. Not only its prevalence rate at present but the increase of its incidence in the near future can create a global health problem. The rapid increase of the total number of newly diagnosed diabetic patients proved to be associated with the increasing prevalence rate of obesity. The metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes can contribute to accelerated atherosclerosis and, therefore, the target organ damages can carry a serious problem for the individuals and also for the whole society. It is obvious, that the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus is of great importance. There is now substantial evidence that type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed by lifestyle interventions, i.e. diet and exercise should be the first choice in order to avoid weight gain when preventing diabetes. Pharmacological intervention should not be routinely used to prevent diabetes although results of large clinical trials with metformin and acarbose in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance are available. It is noteworthy that a decrease in the number of newly diagnosed diabetes was observed in prospective, double blind clinical studies evaluating the effect of new antihypertensive drugs (captopril, ramipril, lisinopril, nifedipine GITS, amlodipine, losartan) or lipid-lowering agents (pravastatin) on the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in high risk patients. In these studies the relative risk reduction of newly diagnosed diabetes was evaluated in comparison to placebo or other drugs in a subgroup of non-diabetic patients at baseline. In addition, the incidence of newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes decreased parallel with weight loss in clinical trials with orlistat, an anti-obesity drug. Although new results were provided by evidence based clinical trials a lot of questions remained to be solved. Further research is necessary to understand better how to facilitate effective primary prevention of type 2 diabetes. Further data are needed to evaluate the clinical significance of currently used antidiabetic drugs and, in addition, the possible role of other drugs (antihypertensives, lipid lowering agents, anti-obesity drugs) should also be investigated in order to identify the optimal primary prevention policy of type 2 diabetes.     

"It's no skin off my nose": why people take part in qualitative research

In this article, the authors analyze participants' accounts of why they took part in a repeat-interview study exploring newly diagnosed patients' perceptions of diabetes service provision in Lothian, Scotland. The study involved three semistructured in-depth interviews with each patient (N = 40), which spanned a year. The authors provide a thematic discursive analysis of responses to the question, Can I ask you what made you decide to part in the study and why you've stayed involved over the past year? The main themes are (a) recruitment within health contexts ("the nurse said it would help"), (b) altruism ("if it can help somebody"), (c) qualitative research being seen as inherently innocuous ("nothing to lose"), and (d) therapeutic aspects of interviewing ("getting it off my chest"). The analysis contributes both to the qualitative literature about generic research participation and to a germinal literature exploring qualitative health research participation.     

The status of hospital discharge data in Denmark, Scotland, West Germany, and the United States

This section has surveyed characteristics of the health service systems in Denmark, Scotland, West Germany, and the United States. Certain characteristics in each country are likely to increase hospital utilization. In the United States the characteristics include economic incentives to physicians and patients for hospital use and the high percent of physicians in specialty practices. In Denmark the high proportion of hospital-based physicians may increase hospital use. In Scotland the use of capitation to pay office-based physicians and the absence of a nursing home system probably increase hospital use, and in West Germany the large number of physicians per population and the lack of sufficient alternative facilities for long-term care are likely to increase hospital use. On the other hand, each health services system has some characteristics that should decrease hospital use: for instance, the large number of alternative facilities for long-term care in the United States, the well-established programs for home care in Denmark and Scotland, and the small percent of physicians who are specialists in West Germany. Further research is needed to understand the interactions of these factors and the effects they have on hospital use. Increased understanding of the effects of health services system characteristics should result in more useful comparisons of hospital utilization statistics.     

ALCOHOLISM, ALCOHOL AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

Abstract - Attempted suicide patients referred to a generalhospital over a 10 year period were studied with regard to alcoholismand drinking in association with suicide attempts. Alcoholismwas diagnosed in 7.9% of patients (14.6% of males and 4.2% females),and this diagnosis became proportionately more common in bothsexes during the study period. However, only male alcoholicattempters showed an increase in absolute numbers during thestudy period, the increase in the proportion of females diagnosedas alcoholic being due to a decline in attempts by non-alcoholics.Particularly high rates of alcoholism were found in the unemployedof both sexes and in housewives. Alcoholic attempters were atgreatly increased risk of making repeat attempts. Alcohol consumptionshortly before a suicide attempt and as part of the act wasextremely common, especially among alcoholics. In addition toincreasing the likelihood of an attempt, alcohol may add considerablyto the danger of overdoses. Careful investigation of drinkingpatterns should be an integral part of the assessment of allattempted suicide patients, and there should be close liaisonbetween general hospital services for such patients and localalcoholism treatment services.     

Familiarity breeds neglect? Unanticipated benefits of discontinuous primary care

BACKGROUND: Continuity of medical care is generally considered to be beneficial to patients. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility that familiarity with patients may sometimes discourage case finding. METHODS: Extensive qualitative interviews were carried out with a sample of Australian adults with type 2 diabetes, focusing in particular on their experience of diagnosis. RESULTS: Interviews were conducted with 119 participants, 75% of whom supplied sufficient information to enable the coding of whether diagnosis occurred under circumstances of discontinuity. Half of all participants (two-thirds of the coded subsample) had a diagnosis that could be categorized as resulting from discontinuous primary care: hospital admission, change of doctor, patient initiative and/or diabetic emergency. CONCLUSION: The same circumstances that enhance the management of chronic disease can at times hinder its diagnosis. Primary care service providers may need to instigate more active methods of case finding in order to avoid this paradoxical effect of familiarity with the patient.     

Temporal arteritis. A 14-year epidemiological, clinical and prognostic study.

A total of 136 patients with histologically proven temporal arteritis were seen in the Lothian Region of Scotland in the 14-year period, 1964-77. This study is a review of these cases with particular reference to incidence, age, sex, seasonal occurrence, along with clinical features, general and visual prognosis. It also comments on treatment, the adverse effects thereof, and the differential diagnosis. A seasonal effect significant at the 1 per cent level was established with a peak occurrence in January.     

Health insurance doesn't seem to discourage prevention among diabetes patients in Colombia

In the South American nation of Colombia, as elsewhere, patients with type 2 diabetes often avoid care that could prevent their condition from worsening. Availability of health insurance may play a role in explaining this behavior. Some patients with diabetes skip preventive measures because they have insurance and calculate that they can access curative services later in life. Insurers may limit preventive services coverage because they can't be assured of sharing in the eventual savings that emerge when a chronic condition such as diabetes is managed properly. Our analysis of a nationally representative sample of Colombians who have type 2 diabetes and who pay premiums into the country's "contributory" insurance program, found no evidence that insurance influences those individuals to avoid preventive services. The evidence is less clear for those participating in a different, fully subsidized insurance program, who-despite the availability of preventive care-are no more likely to seek preventive visits than are uninsured patients. We propose controlled experiments to identify and measure the true causal effects of insurance on prevention and, more broadly, steps to increase patients' understanding of the benefits of prevention.