In the management of type 2 diabetes, a complex interaction takes place between medical
professionals' treatment goals and patients' health beliefs about the disease and
its treatment options. The contribution of self-management education to adherence
in general or even more specifically to medicine taking is not known. We assessed
educational interventions aimed at improving adherence to medical treatment recommendations,
other than lifestyle advice.
Systematic literature review.
This paper represents an analysis of eight articles describing an educational intervention
as a subgroup of a Cochrane Review [E. Vermeire, J. Wens, P. Van Royen, Y. Biot, H.
Hearnshaw, A. Lindenmeyer, Interventions for improving adherence to treatment recommendations
in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005,
Issue 2, Art. No.: CD003638, doi:10.1002/14651858.CD003638.pub2] on interventions
to improve adherence to treatment recommendations in people with type 2 diabetes.
Four studies reported interventions using face-to-face education, two reported on
the effects of group education and two on distance education by telemedicine. Due
to poor quality of study designs, a variety of heterogeneous outcome measures in different
time intervals, unclear definitions of adherence, and difficulties in evaluating different
aspects of education performed, general conclusions could not be drawn.
Consistent conclusions about the effectiveness of educational interventions on adherence
to treatment recommendations were hard to be drawn. There is an urgent need for well-designed
intervention studies on the effect of different aspects of education on adherence
to treatment recommendations.