Perceived Future Outcomes of Unsuccessful Treatment and Their Association with Treatment Persistence Among Type-2 Diabetes Patients: A Cross-Sectional Content Analysis

Introduction Despite the known strong association between patients’ knowledge of outcomes of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and treatment persistence, this knowledge in this patient population requires further clarification. The aim of our study was to reveal the perception of unsuccessful treatment outcomes among patients with T2DM and its association with treatment persistence by analysing answers to open-ended questions. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 106 patients with T2DM who lived in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, had a medical record in the Fukushima National Health Insurance Organisation database and had no cognitive problems were enrolled by purposive sampling. Treatment status was defined as “non-persistent” when a participant’s treatment medical record was absent for a continuous period of ≥ 6 months; otherwise, it was referred to as “persistent”. We asked about the possible future problems of untreated T2DM, inductively classified the open answers into 15 codes and then statistically examined the association between these codes and treatment persistence using logistic regression analysis adjusted for age and sex. Results Persistent treatment was prevalent among participants who mentioned the code “treatment”, which encompasses the terms that indicated invasiveness, such as dialysis, insulin injection, and shots (odds ratio 4.339; 95% confidence interval 1.104–17.055). Conclusion Persistent treatment was prevalent among patients with T2DM who mentioned the code “treatment”, suggesting that these patients may anticipate a threat due to the invasiveness of diabetes and thus participate in persistent treatment to avoid this threat. Healthcare professionals should provide appropriate information and supportive conditions to achieve both a reduced feeling of threat and persistent treatment engagement.