Self-management of Type 2 Diabetes and Severe Mental Illness

Which self-reported measures are useful to explore diabetes support needs among adults with diabetes and severe mental illness?

OBJECTIVES

To construct and test patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for identifying diabetes support needs of adults with co-existing diabetes and severe mental illness (SMI) provided by mental health professionals at psychiatric outpatient clinics.

METHODS

Design thinking was used to identify, select, and modify PROMs in collaboration with 18 adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes and SMI and 10 healthcare experts. The PROMs were then tested with 86 adults with diabetes and SMI recruited from eight psychiatric outpatient clinics in Denmark. Data were analysed using systematic text condensation (questionnaire construction) and descriptive statistics (testing).

RESULTS

Four principles for PROMs were identified: (a) be modified to be relevant for the target group, (b) be concise and simple to complete, (c) have a clear and unambiguous wording, and (d) be designed to measure topics that are perceived as meaningful. Test of the questionnaire contained 49 items in four domains. Missing response rates in the test were 1.2-4.7% in three domains and 4.7-11.6% in a domain addressing potential sources of diabetes support.

DISCUSSION

PROMs can successfully be constructed in collaboration with this vulnerable population that yield low rates of missing responses.

Non-Pharmacological Integrated Interventions for Adults Targeting Type 2 Diabetes and Mental Health Comorbidity: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review

Objective:

Adults living with Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and severe mental illness (SMI) disproportionally experience premature mortality and health inequality. Despite this, there is a limited evidence-base and evaluation of non-pharmacological integrated interventions that may contribute to improved patient experience and outcomes. To improve our understanding of how to optimise integrated care for this group, this review evaluates the effectiveness, acceptability, and feasibility of non-pharmacological integrated interventions for adults with SMI and T2D.

Methods:

Studies from nine electronic databases were searched. Of the 6750 papers retrieved, seven papers (five quantitative and two qualitative) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. A convergent integrated approach was used to narratively synthesise data into four main themes: effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, integrated care.

Results:

There is moderate evidence to suggest non-pharmacological integrated interventions may be effective in improving some diabetes-related and psychosocial outcomes. Person-centred integrated interventions that are delivered collaboratively by trained facilitators who exemplify principles of integrated care may be effective in reducing the health-treatment gap.

Conclusions:

Recommendations from this review can provide guidance to healthcare professionals, commissioners, and researchers to inform improvements to non-pharmacological integrated interventions that are evidence-based, theoretically driven, and informed by patient and healthcare professionals’ experiences of care.

Identifying determinants of diabetes risk and outcomes for people with severe mental illness: a mixed-methods study

Background

People with severe mental illness experience poorer health outcomes than the general population. Diabetes contributes significantly to this health gap.

Objectives

The objectives were to identify the determinants of diabetes and to explore variation in diabetes outcomes for people with severe mental illness.

Design

Under a social inequalities framework, a concurrent mixed-methods design combined analysis of linked primary care records with qualitative interviews.

Setting

The quantitative study was carried out in general practices in England (2000–16). The qualitative study was a community study (undertaken in the North West and in Yorkshire and the Humber).

Participants

The quantitative study used the longitudinal health records of 32,781 people with severe mental illness (a subset of 3448 people had diabetes) and 9551 ‘controls’ (with diabetes but no severe mental illness), matched on age, sex and practice, from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (GOLD version). The qualitative study participants comprised 39 adults with diabetes and severe mental illness, nine family members and 30 health-care staff.

Data sources

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (GOLD) individual patient data were linked to Hospital Episode Statistics, Office for National Statistics mortality data and the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Results

People with severe mental illness were more likely to have diabetes if they were taking atypical antipsychotics, were living in areas of social deprivation, or were of Asian or black ethnicity. A substantial minority developed diabetes prior to severe mental illness. Compared with people with diabetes alone, people with both severe mental illness and diabetes received more frequent physical checks, maintained tighter glycaemic and blood pressure control, and had fewer recorded physical comorbidities and elective admissions, on average. However, they had more emergency admissions (incidence rate ratio 1.14, 95% confidence interval 0.96 to 1.36) and a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality than people with diabetes but no severe mental illness (hazard ratio 1.89, 95% confidence interval 1.59 to 2.26). These paradoxical results may be explained by other findings. For example, people with severe mental illness and diabetes were more likely to live in socially deprived areas, which is associated with reduced frequency of health checks, poorer health outcomes and higher mortality risk. In interviews, participants frequently described prioritising their mental illness over their diabetes (e.g. tolerating antipsychotic side effects, despite awareness of harmful impacts on diabetes control) and feeling overwhelmed by competing treatment demands from multiple morbidities. Both service users and practitioners acknowledged misattributing physical symptoms to poor mental health (‘diagnostic overshadowing’).

Limitations

Data may not be nationally representative for all relevant covariates, and the completeness of recording varied across practices.

Conclusions

People with severe mental illness and diabetes experience poorer health outcomes than, and deficiencies in some aspects of health care compared with, people with diabetes alone.

Future work

These findings can inform the development of targeted interventions aimed at addressing inequalities in this population.

Study registration

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Central Portfolio Management System (37024); and ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03534921.

Funding

This project was funded by the NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health Services and Delivery Research; Vol. 9, No. 10. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.