Diabetes Management: Study Shows That Majority Of The Latino Patients With Diabetes Are Less Likely To Adhere With Diabetes Care

Who would have though that language can create an impact on diabetes care? A recent study shows that Latino patients who have limited English understanding are less likely to consume diabetes medications compared to the other diabetics in U.S. This is despite having a Spanish-speaking doctor around.

The study includes having 31,000 diabetic patients who are sustained by an insurance and healthcare from Kaiser Permanente in Northern Carolina. Even though the patients are told to take the required drugs for their diseases, researchers found out that more than half of the Spanish-speaking Latino patients do not fill any prescriptions for at least 20 percent of the time in a couple of years. Meanwhile, "that rate was only about 52 percent of English-speaking Latino patients and 38 percent of white patients", said Reuters.

Lead study author Dr. Alicia Fernandez stated that despite being insured and having low hindrances when it comes to healthcare, most diabetic Latino patients have poor medication compared to their white counterparts. The outcome about medication adherence is the same for Latino patients with diabetes despite talking to Spanish-speaking doctors. This study only shows that Latino patient's choice for medication is affected not only by the language and communication. (via The JAMA Network)

Meanwhile, another study was conducted and it aims to gather data from Kaiser Permanente that will find out whether the Latino patients with limited English skills might have better control in sugar intake once they switched from an English-speaking doctor to Spanish-speaking one. The study shows that there is about 54 percent diabetic patients who have dealt with a non-Spanish speaking physician and 48 percent of those have switched to a Spanish-speaking doctor.
After the switch, a whopping 74 percent of the patients have developed better sugar control. The study concludes that having a doctor who speaks the patient's language is an important factor for various reasons such as improved communication, reduce misunderstandings, higher patient satisfaction, and an evidence of improved diabetes management.