Table 6.
Participant quotations about whether clinicians’ behavior was supportive and encouraged patients’ autonomy
| Quotation number | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Supportive clinician behavior | |
| 20 | “(Diabetes clinic) is supportive as they treat you as a friend as soon as you go in there. That was a big thing for me.” (Female patient aged 24 years, T1DM duration 2 years) |
| 21 | “My endocrinologist, I found him myself. I needed to be able to relate to my doctor. I have developed a personal relationship with him. I would probably enjoy hanging out with him, outside of the office.” (Male patient aged 22 years, T1DM duration 16 years) |
| 22 | “Because I can call them up at any time and ask questions and anything that I ask they do not make me feel stupid.” (Female patient aged 20 years, T1DM 3 years) |
| 23 | “When I express my worries she is very supportive, very understanding, always available, very compassionate, and genuinely sincere.” (Female patient aged 32 years, T1DM duration 2 years) |
| 24 | “I see (…) and she absolutely doesn’t tell me what I should be doing but gives options.” (Female patient aged 27 years, T1DM 16 years) |
| 25 | “My endocrinologist is really good. She gives me heaps of options and she’ll ring me and I can ring her.” (Female patient aged 32 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| 26 | “Instead of telling them they were idiots and should wake up to themselves she was like: ‘What is the first small step you can take to better management?’” (Female patient aged 27 years, T1DM duration 16 years) |
| 27 | “My endocrinologist … if she thinks a course of action is a good thing, she’ll tell me about it and then say basically … ‘Are you going to be able to give it a go? Email me when you’re having any issues.’ Things like that I find incredibly helpful.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| 28 | “She spent ages on the phone with me … having the capacity to call someone or email them directly is such a relief and I feel good about that.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 6 years) |
| 29 | “She knows that I work hard at trying to control my diabetes.” (Female patient aged 27 years, T1DM duration 16 years) |
| 30 | “When I do things, which she thinks is a positive step, I get lots of affirmations.” (Female patient aged 32 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| Unsupportive clinician behavior | |
| 31 | “I had to very quickly learn to state my case. I found that if I was feeling … blamed for high sugar levels when I’d done everything right, it was like, I don’t want to see you anymore because I need someone who’s going to help me manage this for the rest of my life. That was something I decided quite early on.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| 32 | “I recently made a decision not to see an endocrinologist anymore unless I have to. I go and see an educator because instead of making me feel like everything’s just numbers and I’m being judged on everything, she gives me another side to it.” (Female patient aged 21 years, T1DM duration 17 years) |
| 33 | “It is really helpful having a person understand my emotions and how I feel … but the educators and endocrinologists are quite removed from it all.” (Female patient aged 31 years, T1DM duration 21 years) |
| 34 | “The endocrinologist that I have at the moment, it’s like talking to a cardboard box … She does not have feelings for what you’re going through.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 13 years) |
| 35 | “In the hands of the specialist who said lose weight, get your sugar levels down; I did not know what to do. I was already not eating in an attempt to do that.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| 36 | “I can’t even make an appointment to see a dietician because of too many years of being told you should not be eating that … I’m sick of being told what not to do. I need to know what I can do.” (Female patient aged 33 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
| 37 | “It’s too much academic. Not enough reality or world experience or listening to diabetics instead of telling them.” (Male patient aged 25 years, T1DM duration 6 years) |
| 38 | “I feel my visits to (the endocrinologist) are redundant because I know exactly how the conversation is going to go. I would prefer to just pick up the phone and ask them what my HbA1c is and then move on because quite often that is all I get out of it.” (Female patient aged 27 years, T1DM duration 16 years) |
| 39 | “I don’t consult with a GP because I would go in and know exactly the questions they would ask because it is like they have a script: What sort of insulin are you on, how many times a day do you take the insulin, how are your feet?” (Female patient aged 32 years, T1DM duration 25 years) |
Abbreviations: GP, general practitioner; T1DM, type 1 diabetes mellitus.