Abstract
We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey on the use of SMBG (Self Monitoring of Blood Glucose) devices of a wide variety of patients and medical staffs, to determine factors that are important in the selection of a device in medical institutions and the usability and/or satisfaction level of the patients and medical staff with the device. The study showed that more than 3 types of SMBG devices were adopted in over half of the university hospitals and clinics of general practitioners. Self-selection of the devices was done by 14% of patients attending university hospitals, which was the highest.
Although the clinics had adopted many SMBG devices, self-selection was done by 6% on the patients attending clinics. It would seem that the device selection is influenced by the medical staffs advice in the clinics and self-selection was associated with a high level of satisfaction. Another finding was the difference between the patients and medical staff in terms of the satisfaction level, patients appear to place more importance on the “portability”, “operability”, and “safety”, while medical staff attach more importance to “painless” and “reliability”.
