The effect of integrated health management model on the health of older adults with diabetes in a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of integrated health management model on the health of older adults with diabetes. The 100 older adults with diabetes who gave informed consent were randomly allocated 1:1 into management and control groups. The integrated health management model was applied in the former while the latter was only given usual care. This model included the following components: health record establishment, health evaluation and health management (such as: diet advice, psychological aspects of health, education/skills training on health self-management, regular blood glucose monitoring, long-term diabetes drug monitoring, etc.). After 18 months, differences in three categories of variables (subjective grading items, objective measurement health indices and health service utilization) between the two groups before and after the intervention were assessed with t-test, χ2-test and mixed model analysis. The management group demonstrated improvement on the following variables: health knowledge score, self-evaluated psychological conditions, overall self-evaluated health conditions, diet score, physical activity duration per week, regular blood sugar monitoring, waist-to-hip ratio, diastolic blood pressure and fasting blood sugar, the days of hospital admissions in the preceding 6 months. Mixed model analysis showed that gender, age, self-evaluated health status, self-evaluated psychological status, education level and resident status were important factors affecting health indices. This study demonstrated that integrated health management model was effectiveness in improving the health of older adults with diabetes.