Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Patient Surveys: Day 9

For the past three weekdays, I have interviewed four more patients:





If you look at Figure 5 in my first post from last week, "Patient Surveys: Day 4," you can see that Patients 15 - 17 have an HbA1c level (10.30%, 11.30%, and 10.60%, respectively) that is so high that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) would recommend "reevaluation" of treatment.

You will also notice that these three patients each scored higher than their (approximately) normal-HbA1c counterpart, Patient 14 (HbA1c level 7.20%). I think it's particularly interesting to note that the data of these four patients seem to indicate that regardless of the type of diabetes present, if the patient is maintaining little control over their condition, they are scoring higher on the depression scale. In the past, no such general trend was apparent, seeing as the Type 2 diabetics previously surveyed had low PHQ-9 scores and HbA1c levels making their data inconclusive in this regard (i.e. it was uncertain whether scores were low because of the type of diabetes, the good control over the diabetes, or both).

Of course, I am still in the early stages of these interviews. By no means do I have enough data to conclusively claim that any of these noted day-to-day trends apply to the diabetic population at large.

Lalani.

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