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.
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus; Lower Austria; compliance; mortality; patient adherence.