Journal of General Practice

The Impact of Provider Continuity Care on Quality of Care of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in the Family Medicine Clinic Of UCTH, Calabar, Nigeria

Abstract

Udonwa NE and Okoi NO

Background: Diabetes mellitus in sub-Saharan Africa is a chronic and debilitating disease with increasing morbidity and mortality. The increased morbidity and mortality could be attributed to poor approach to management. One of these poor approaches could be lack of continuity of care. Aim: To investigate the impact of provider continuity care on quality of care for adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus by comparing the quality of care of the adult patients managed on provider continuity basis and those managed by random care providers. Method: One hundred and twenty six adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were recruited into the facilitybased on cross sectional descriptive study that lasted for four months. Sixty-three adult patients received provider continuity care and sixty-three adults received random care. The quality of care measures used in this study included fasting plasma glucose (FPG), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbAic) and blood pressure (BP) control. The data collected was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 15. Results: Among the study patients, there were more females 72 (57.2%) than males 54 (42.8%). The commonly presented symptoms of polyuria and polydypsia were seen in 76.2% and 35.7% of the patients respectively. There was a significant difference in the glycaemic control using the fasting plasma glucose level between patients with provider continuity care and random care (5.62 ± 2.04 vs. 8.53 ± 3.18) (p<0.001) and in the quality of care between patients with provider continuity care and random care using HbAic standard respectively (p<0.011). There was no significant difference in terms of blood pressure control between provider continuity care and random care (p>0.365). Conclusion: This study found an association between provider continuity care and quality of care in adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Consequently, provider continuity care is judged to be more beneficial in the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus in our environment.