Education as prescription for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: compliance and efficacy in clinical practice

Diabetes self-management education has an important role in diabetes management. The efficacy of education has been proven in several randomized trials. However, the status of diabetes education programs in real Korean clinical practice has not yet been evaluated in terms of patient compliance with the education prescription. We retrospectively analyzed clinical and laboratory data from all patients who were ordered to undergo diabetes education during 2009 at Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea (n=2,291). After excluding ineligible subjects, 588 patients were included in the analysis. Among the 588 patients, 433 received education. The overall compliance rate was 73.6%, which was significantly higher in the subjects with a short duration or living in a rural area compared to those with a long duration (85.0% vs. 65.1%, respectively; P