Diabetes Management Challenges in Iran: A Qualitative Content Analysis

Introduction: Managing a chronic disease like diabetes needs the patients’ follow-up and coherent care delivery system.In fact, it requires a systematic and organized care delivery system with skillful and specialist team. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore and analyze diabetes management challenges in the patients visiting a diabetes unit in Iran.Materials & Methods: This qualitative research was conducted at a specialized poly-clinic of Isfahan insurance organization in 2016.The research participants were the members of clinic diabetes unit (physician, nurse, secretary, clinic director) and 21 type 2 diabetic patients of the clinic who were selected using purposeful sampling method.Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and analysed using content analysis.Results: The qualitative findings of this research were obtained in two main categories including: 1) weak care delivery system and 2) Defective diabetes self-care.Conclusion: The results of this research have demonstrated that there are system-centered and patient-centered challenges in diabetes management and they can affect the patients’ health outcomes.Since diabetes is one of the health system priorities, the findings of this study can be a warning for managers and policy makers to plan seriously to reform diabetes management system infrastructures.