Diabetes Group Visit in a Primary Care Setting

Abstract

The group visits models one innovation in the field of chronic illness management that shows promise in meeting the growing demands for this type of care. Patients get significant peer and healthcare provider support during group visits. Group visits typically last 90 min and occur on a regularly scheduled basis. The study design was a quasi-experimental pre-post-test with a comparison group. Patients were recruited into either the intervention or control group. Patients self-selected which group they chose to participate in. The measurement data was collected at three time intervals: baseline, 3-months and 6-months. The control group received standard of care. Changes in clinical indicators and in patient self-efficacy were tested using Repeated Measures ANOVA. The intervention group receiving diabetes group visits showed statistically significant improvement in all variables with the exception of diastolic blood pressure. In order to achieve improved patient outcomes and reduce the socioeconomic burden of diabetes care, the group care model should be implemented as a standard of care in diabetes management.