THE MAIN BARRIERS TO INSULIN TREATMENT IN ELDERLY DIABETIC PATIENTS: THE ROLE OF THERAPEUTIC EDUCATION
THE MAIN BARRIERS TO INSULIN TREATMENT IN ELDERLY DIABETIC PATIENTS: THE ROLE OF THERAPEUTIC EDUCATION

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the present study was to assess knowledge of insulin treatment and identify the main barriers to insulin administration in an elderly population with type 2 diabetes. This was a cross sectional study, conducted on 100 insulin treated type 2 diabetic patients, aged 65-89 years, admitted in the Department of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases in Iasi. We collected data on the demographic characteristics of patients and assessed through two questionnaires patients’ compliance with insulin treatment and therapeutic knowledge. Mean duration of diabetes was 6.79 years. Although the majority of patients (54%) declared that they administrated insulin according to the scheduled prescribed, 40% of subjects sometimes delayed the injection and 6% of them frequently retarded the administration of insulin; 22% of patients stated that they seldom forgot to administer insulin and 4% interrupted it for a longer period. Only 16% of patients felt embarrassed to administrate insulin in public. Low adherence of elderly patients to insulin treatment is determined by psychological, social and cognitive factors. Elderly diabetic patients require a greater number of hours for therapeutic education, especially those who have low skills in insulin‘s injection.

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