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General practice / Family practice
Research
Lessons learnt from a cluster-randomised trial evaluating the effectiveness of Self-Management Support (SMS) delivered by practice nurses in routine diabetes care
  1. Anneke van Dijk-de Vries1,2,
  2. Marloes A van Bokhoven1,
  3. Bjorn Winkens3,
  4. Berend Terluin4,
  5. J André Knottnerus1,
  6. Trudy van der Weijden1,
  7. Jacques Th M van Eijk2
  1. 1Department of Family Medicine, Maastricht University, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht, The Netherlands
  2. 2Department of Social Medicine, Maastricht University, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht, The Netherlands
  3. 3Department of Methodology and Statistics, Maastricht University, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht, The Netherlands
  4. 4Department of General Practice and Elderly Care Medicine, VU University Medical Centre, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Anneke van Dijk-de Vries; anneke.vandijk{at}maastrichtuniversity.nl

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of biopsychosocial Self-Management Support (SMS) delivered by practice nurses in routine diabetes care.

Design A pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial within a hybrid effectiveness-implementation study design. Practice nurses were cluster-randomised.

Setting A regional care group in the Netherlands consisting of 77 family practices. The study involved practice nurses (n=40) providing care to approximately 4000 patients with diabetes.

Participants Patients with type 2 diabetes (n=264) selected by a self-administered questionnaire aimed at measuring emotional distress and diabetes-related reduced daily functioning.

Intervention Practice nurses in the intervention arm (n=19) were trained to integrate SMS into their routine consultations. SMS included detection of patients with emotional distress and reduced daily functioning, and supporting them when needed through problem solving and reattribution techniques. Practice nurses in the control arm (n=21) provided usual care.

Main outcome measures The primary outcome measure was a dichotomised score on a Visual Analogue Scale that measured the perceived effect of diabetes on daily functioning. Secondary measures included patients’ diabetes-related distress, quality of life, autonomy and participation, self-efficacy, self-management and glycaemic control. Outcomes were measured at baseline and at 4-month and 12-month follow-ups.

Results Only 16 of the 117 patients in the intervention arm (14%) who were found eligible by the posted research-driven screening questionnaire were detected by their practice nurses. Extra consultations for the self-management support were delivered to only 11 study participants. In the control arm, 147 patients received usual care. Multilevel analyses showed no significant differences in outcomes between the intervention and control arms.

Conclusions SMS in its present form was not effective. The research-driven screening to select trial participants appeared to be inconsistent with nurse-led detection in routine practice. Adequate follow-up moments need to be built in to overcome barriers resulting from tension between the implementation and effectiveness parts of hybrid studies.

Trial registration number Current Controlled Trials NTR2764.

  • PUBLIC HEALTH
  • PRIMARY CARE

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-007014

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