Profiling risk factors of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes awaiting outpatient diabetes specialist consultant appointment, a narrative review

Background: Entry to seek health care services in Australia is based on a person's acuity rating as stipulated in legislation, standards and policy. In the context of diabetes Specialist Outpatient Departments, access involves a referral that is triaged by a clinician into a categorised waitlist. However, within categories, access to health care is queue based only, which omits patient centric factors determining the order of appointment allocation. Aim: The purpose of the literature review undertaken June to December 2019 was to identify which patient centric factors influence the risk of deterioration in a type 2 diabetes population waiting for an appointment. Methods: Databases searched included CINAHL, Medline and Scopus from 2011 to 2019. The first search focussed on key words, the second search focussed on a revised expression of key words emerging from the first search. The third search identified articles sourced from reference lists. Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) critical appraisal tools were used to appraise the rigour of the studies. Findings: Four key themes emerged from 29 selected articles. Duration of diabetes, comorbidity, age of patient and prescribed medication therapy significantly influenced the level of risk associated with deterioration. Discussion: Further research is needed to evidence if duration of type 2 diabetes, comorbidities, age of patient and medication therapy influence the risk of deterioration in an Australian cohort. Conclusion: The aim of this review was to discover which patient centric factors influence the risk of deterioration in a type 2 diabetes population. (c) 2021 Australian College of Nursing Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )