Disease Monitoring Related Adherence and Its Association with Mortality in Lower Austrian Diabetes Patients

BACKGROUND Patient adherence is an important component of an efficient therapy. For diabetes patients it may contribute to controlled glucose values and reduction of adverse outcomes. OBJECTIVES We aim to examine a potential association of Lower Austrian diabetes patients' adherence concerning their disease monitoring and mortality. METHODS Using a retrospective cohort study design, claims data of 55,873 diabetes patients were examined for regular HbA1c lab tests that served as a proxy for monitoring related adherence. The cumulative incidence of mortality was estimated in the total study population and separately for different levels of adherence using the product-limit method. Mortality was compared between the different levels of adherence by the log-rank test. RESULTS The cumulative incidence of mortality after one and two years was 4.2% and 8.7%. Patients with low adherence had a significantly higher risk of mortality than patients with high adherence (p < 0.001). Further results of a multivariable analysis will be presented at the conference. CONCLUSION According to our preliminary univariate analysis, monitoring related adherence seems to be substantially beneficial for diabetes patients in Lower Austria.