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Defeat Diabetes
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Can Providing Free Strips to Self-Monitor Type 2 Diabetes Improve Control?

Posted: Thursday, November 02, 2006

According to one study it does not. But the study was flawed in that they did not educate the patient as what to do with the information.

Self-monitoring of blood glucose is often considered a cornerstone of self-care for patients with diabetes. We assessed whether provision of free testing strips would improve glycemic control in non-insulin-treated Type 2 diabetic patients.

Adults with Type 2 diabetes, excluding those with private insurance or using insulin, were recruited through community pharmacies and randomized to receive free testing strips for 6 months or not; all patients received similar baseline education and a glucose meter. Primary outcome was change in HbA1c over 6 months.

We randomized 262 patients (131 intervention and 131 control subjects). Mean age was 68.4 years (SD 10.9), 48% were male, mean duration of diabetes was 8.2 years (SD 7.2), 97% used oral glucose-lowering agents and mean baseline HbA1c was 7.4% (SD 1.2). After 6 months, we observed no difference in HbA1c between intervention and control patients, after adjusting for baseline HbA1c [adjusted difference 0.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.16, 0.22; P = 0.78]. A per protocol analysis of study completers (152/262; 60%) yielded similar results. Intervention patients reported testing 0.64 days per week more often than control subjects (95% CI 0.18, 1.10; P = 0.007), although testing was not associated with better glycemic control (Pearson r = -0.10, P = 0.12).

From the results it was concluded that reducing financial barriers by providing free testing strips did not improve glycemic control in patients with Type 2 diabetes not using insulin. Our results question the value of policies that reduce financial barriers to testing supplies in this population.

Source: Diabetes In Control: Diabet. Med. 23, 1247–1251 (2006)