Quality care of patients with diabetes mellitus in the diabetic clinic at Al Wakra healthcare center, Qatar

Abstract EN

ntroduction: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic illness that requires continuous medical care.

Patient health education and self-management aim to prevent acute complications and to reduce the risk of long-term complications.

Care of diabetic patients is a complex proces and requires many issues beyond glycemic control.

This study is conducted to assess quality of care of diabetic patients in the diabetic clinic at Al Wakra Healthcare Center and to determine some factors that may affect the quality of this care.

Methodology : this is a descriptive, cross-sectional study.

The target population was all diabetic patients (Type 2) that meet the inclusion criteria and registered at the center.

Two checklists assessed the structure of diabetic care; the first checklist is for the essential items of care (thirteen items) and the second one is for the less essential items (ten items).

The indicators of the process of diabetic care was assessed by a scoring system that depends on ten items for standard diabetic care by the primary care physicians in the past year.

Assessment of the outcome was done according to an international quality assurance protocol and it includes : the degree of diabetic control, obesity, smoking among the diabetic patients and control of blood pressure.

We added HbA1c to this list.

Another questionnaire was designed to determine factors that may affect quality of diabetic care-related to patient's knowledge and attitude and it is divided into 4 sections: personal data, patient knowledge about diabetes, patient attitude toward care and clinical and biochemical assessments.

A pilot study was carried out to test the questionnaires.

Epi-info.

Six statistical package was used for data entry and statistical analysis.

Chi square or Fisher exact tests were used to test the significance, and P value < 0.05 was considered significant.