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A GOOD QUALITY OF PHYSICIAN-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP IS ASSOCIATED WITH A BETTER GLYCEMIC BALANCE IN DIABETIC PATIENTS | |
| Contact: Catherine Attale Phone: 0033156093371 Email: catherine.attale@club-internet.fr Embargoed until: March 3, 2005 |
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Vancouver, BC, Canada - In a chronic disease like diabetes, the points of view of the diabetologist and his/her patient as regard the management of the disease, and the expectations of both partners can vary to a large extent and lead to misunderstandings harmful to the course of diabetes and to patient's quality of life. An original study conducted by Catherine Attale, MD, research clinician in European Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, found that the degree of "therapeutic alliance" as assessed by the diabetologist, predicted the mean levels of "glycosilated hemoglobin" during the previous year, as well as the corresponding results one year later, in 99 insulin dependent diabetics. Results of the study were presented for the first time at the American Psychosomatic Society annual meeting, held on March 2-5 in Vancouver, Canada. "Therapeutic alliance" can be defined as the degree of agreement between a physician and his/her patient about the goals of the treatment, the tasks that have to be done, and the quality of interpersonal bond (trust, satisfaction, sympathy…). "Glycosilated hemoglobin" measured in blood samples constitutes a kind of long-term memory of the presence of glucose in the blood: the higher this measure, the poorer the glycemic balance during the previous three months in a diabetic patient. These results stress the importance of a harmonious and open physician-patient relationship, in addition to the effectiveness of a pharmacological treatment, for achieving a satisfactory therapeutic efficiency in a chronic disease like diabetes. | |
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Psychosomatic Medicine is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, published bimonthly. For information about the journal, contact Vicki White, Managing Editor for Manuscript Production,
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