What are patient factors associated with the quality of diabetes care?: results from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Background: Recently there has been a growing interest in healthcare quality control in Korea. We examined the association between patient factors and quality indicators of diabetic care among Korean adults with diabetes. Methods: We obtained a sample of 335 adults aged 20 or older diagnosed with diabetes from the 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Patient factors were divided into two categories: socioeconomic position and health-related factors. Quality indicators for diabetes care were defined as receiving preventive care services for diabetes complications (e. g., fundus examination, microalbuminuria examination, diabetes education) and diabetes-related clinical outcomes (e. g., HbA1c, blood pressure, LDL-cholesterol). We performed multiple logistic regression analyses for each quality indicator. Results: We found that people with lower education levels or shorter duration of diabetes illness were less likely to receive preventive care services for diabetes complications. Women or people with longer duration of diabetes were less likely to reach the glycemic target. Obese diabetic patients were less likely to accomplish adequate control of blood pressure and LDL-cholesterol. Conclusions: Several factors of patients with diabetes, such as education level, duration of illness, gender, and obesity grade are associated with the quality of diabetes care. These findings can help inform policy makers about subpopulations at risk in developing a public health strategy in the future.