FAMILY PHYSICIANS' ATTITUDES TOWARD MANAGING DIABETES AND THEIR SELF-EVALUATION OF THEIR COMPETENCIES

Abstract

Aims: This study was designed to determine how diabetes is managed in primary care and conducted in Mugla Province in Turkey. We wanted to reveal I) The attitudes of Family Physicians (FP) towards the importance of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and the role of FPs, 2) The behavior of FPs regarding diagnosis, treatment and patient education, 3) Self-evaluations of knowledge in managing diabetes and 4) Obstacles hindering FPs in treating diabetes. Material and method's: The participants were family physicians working in primary care family health centers in both city centers and districts. We developed a questionnaire which includes age, practice duration, location of practice, type of practice (whether they work solo or are in group practice), number of patients seen in a week, questions regarding attitudes toward screening, diagnosis, treatment, patient education, and self-evaluations of competencies regarding diabetes management. Data were collected from FPs through a web-based questionnaire between April and June 2014. Results: Of the FPs, 51.7% stated that it is not easy to follow up on insulin treatment and 41.3% feared the risk of hypoglycemia. In general, they had sufficient knowledge about target levels of blood pressure, blood glucose, blood cholesterol and HbA1c levels and diagnostic criteria but insufficient knowledge about new treatment strategies. using insulin, and drug interactions in treatment. Conclusions: Our study results show that Primary Care Physicians (PCP) were more or less confident about initiating Oral Antidiabetic Drugs (OAD) in patients whereas they were not confident about either initiating or intensifying insulin in T2DM patients. Most of them indicated that they refer patients who need insulin treatment when OADs are inadequate to specialists. Further studies are needed in Turkey to explore barriers and address gaps and challenges in the care of patients with diabetes