Quality of life, treatment satisfaction, and treatment preference associated with use of a pen device delivering a premixed 70/30 insulin aspart suspension (aspart protamine suspension/soluble aspart) versus alternative treatment strategies.

Abstract

Interest in intensified insulin therapy has contributed to the increased popularity of alternative insulin delivery systems, including insulin pen delivery devices. Although there have been several studies of patient-reported outcomes associated with insulin pen use (1–6), there has been no adequate assessment of 1 ) the most advanced devices, pens delivering premixed intermediate-acting and rapid-acting analog insulin; 2 ) the effects of pens for patients previously naive to insulin; 3 ) the effects of pens on general quality of life; and 4 ) what factors contribute to preference for different insulin delivery systems. Participants were patients with type 2 diabetes who completed a satisfaction substudy after being enrolled by their physicians in a 3-month clinical experience program of NovoLog Mix 70/30 in a prefilled FlexPen insulin pen device that delivered a 70/30 mixture of intermediate-acting and rapid-acting analog insulin (a suspension of protamine-crystallized insulin aspart and soluble insulin aspart). Of 899 patients who originally signed and returned a card indicating consent to participate in the satisfaction substudy, 372 (41%) returned completed questionnaires, for which they were given US$25. The questions included items from validated measures. Diabetes treatment satisfaction was measured by the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (change) (DTSQc) (7) and Quality of Life status and change (QLsc) (8). Quality of life was measured by the QLsc. Table 1 describes the measures, including the questions used for each measure, the reliability of each measure, and the …