[Compliance and optimisation of oral antidiabetic therapy. A longitudinal study].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the impact of optimization of treatment and improvement in observance awareness in patients with type 2 diabetes on compliance with oral antidiabetic drug therapy and long-term glycemic control. Method Evaluation of compliance with oral antidiabetic therapy and of HbA1c levels in a cohort of 4 802 patients with type 2 diabetes followed by their general practitioner, before and after 6 Months on optimized treatment: reduction in percentage of combination treatments from 69.5 to 56.8%, and increase in percentage of once-daily dosing regimen from 12 to 58.4%.

RESULTS

Optimization of treatment led to an increase in the percentage of patients achieving optimal compliance with oral antidiabetic drug therapy from 44 to 69.5% after 6 Months (p<0.001). Metabolic control also improved, as evidenced by a decrease in HbA1c levels observed both in the whole cohort (7.5+/-1.6% to 6.9+/-1.2%; p<0.0005), as well as in individual therapeutic subgroups of patients (having switched from multiple-daily dosing to once-daily-dosing schedules and from gliclazide 80 to gliclazide 30 MR once-daily formulation).

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that optimization of oral antidiabetic therapy favoring the use of oral antidiabetic agents with once-daily dosing administration modalities may improve metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes.