title: Pain reduction and financial incentives to improve glucose monitoring adherence in a community health center.
abstract: Self-monitoring of blood glucose is a critical component of diabetes management. However, patients often do not maintain the testing schedule recommended by their healthcare provider. Many barriers to testing have been cited, including cost and pain. We present a small pilot study to explore whether the use of financial incentives and pain-free lancets could improve adherence to glucose testing in a community health center patient population consisting largely of non-English speaking ethnic minorities with low health literacy. The proportion of patients lost to follow-up was 17%, suggesting that a larger scale study is feasible in this type of setting, but we found no preliminary evidence suggesting a positive effect on adherence by either financial incentives or pain-free lancets. Results from this pilot study will guide the design of larger-scale studies to evaluate approaches to overcome the variety of barriers to glucose testing that are present in disadvantaged patient populations.
authors.affiliation: Share Our Selves Community Health Center, Costa Mesa, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mary Ann H
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Huntsman
authors.affiliation: Share Our Selves Community Health Center, Costa Mesa, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Faith J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Olivares
authors.affiliation: Share Our Selves Community Health Center, Costa Mesa, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Christina P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: Health Policy Research Institute and Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Billimek
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Elliot E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Hui
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015190:Blood Glucose Self-Monitoring / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003151:Community Health Centers; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000191:economics* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D005947:Glucose / Q000032:analysis*; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010349:Patient Compliance; D010865:Pilot Projects
chemical_list: D005947:Glucose