Metabolic outcome for diabetes shared care program outpatients in a veterans hospital of southern Taiwan.

BACKGROUND

To evaluate the metabolic outcomes of the Diabetes Shared Care Program (DSCP) for Type 2 diabetes after completion of 1 year and 3 years of intervention.

METHODS

Total 162 Type 2 diabetes (average age 67.14 years with 62.35% men and 37.65% women) in 2004 were referred to the diabetes educator for DSCP. Parameters related to diabetes among these patients were inquired, and biochemical data were compared before and after the DSCP by using SPSS 12.0 software.

RESULTS

These patients had 3.1% emergency utilization rate and 1.9% hospitalization utilization rate; significant improvement in diastolic blood pressure (DBP), body weight after one year; and significant improvement in systolic blood pressure, DBP, body weight, total cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins cholesterol (HDL-C) and low-density lipoproteins cholesterol (LDL-C) levels after three years. But only 4.84% and 8.87% met all the A1C, blood pressure, and LDL-C target values after the 1- and 3-year interventions, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The A1C, blood pressure, and LDL-C achievement rate of DSCP in our hospital is low. DSCP is suggestive to patients with lower duration of diabetes, high baseline A1C, systolic blood pressure, DBP, LDL-C, and low baseline high-density lipoproteins cholesterol levels. Furthermore public health efforts are needed to control risk factors for vascular disease among diabetes.