Quality of care among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients residing in an urban slum of Chennai Corporation -- a community-based cross-sectional study.
Despite the high prevalence, serious long term complications and established evidence based guidelines for management of diabetes mellitus the quality of care is still deficient in developed and developing countries. So a study of these factors and their influence on the quality of care is necessary to tackle diabetes in the community. The objectives of the study were to assess the quality of care in type 2 diabetes patients of 35 years and above age group and to identify the factors associated with it. It is a community-based cross-sectional study done among urban slum people of Chennai, in which 323 adults with type 2 diabetes were interviewed in the above said age group. Variables like age, sex, income, duration of diabetes, healthcare delivery of choice, treatment prescribed, compliance to treatment, family history of diabetes, presence of comorbid illnesses and quality of care indicators were studied and appropriate statistical analysis was carried out. Only 26 adults (8%) received good quality of care in this study. The adults who received good quality of care were among male sex (p < 0.005), high income group (p < 0.001), patients with good compliance to treatment (p < 0.001) and those who preferred private health facility for treatment (p < 0.001). The present current study indicates very low quality of care among this community. The management of diabetes in our setting was suboptimal and even the minimum achievable goals were not reached.
Department of Community Medicine, ACS Medical College, Chennai 600077.
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Balaji
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data