Patient Surveys: Day 1

Welcome back! Today, I began my patient surveys. Approximately sixty to seventy patients are seen everyday here. Though it may seem like an endocrinologist is primarily involved with diabetic patients, there are far more endocrinological complications that patients are seen for at an endocrinology practice than just diabetes. As a result, of those sixty to seventy patients seen in one day, few of them actually meet my inclusion criteria, i.e. few are eligible for participation in my study. But that doesn't mean my sample size contains few patients — seeing as I have over a month left of my senior project and I will be doing nothing more than these surveys during my time on-site, I don't currently feel that interviewing three or four patients daily on average will result in a small sample size.

Two patients were surveyed today. Patient 1 (age 34) is a Type 1 diabetic and presents with an HbA_1c  level of 8.7% and a PHQ-9 score of 0. Patient 2 (age 70) is also a Type 1 diabetic and presents with an HbA_1c  level of 10.2% and a PHQ-9 score of 7. Recall that scores of 5 to 9 indicate the presence of minimal depression symptoms and any score above 10 indicates a provisional diagnosis of a DSM-IV depressive disorder (see "PHQ-9 as a Diagnostic Tool"). 

Below are the results from today's patient interviews. You'll also notice that I've added a new tab to my blog entitled "Data Collected to Date" which contains all of the data from my patient surveys, compiled into one document. 



Lalani.