Table 1.
Domain | Clinical target | Clinician-related factors | Patient-related factors | Organisational-related factors |
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Environmental context and resources | General | Families not invited for lifestyle modification discussions.48 | Patients’ socioeconomic situation, occupation, carer status, comorbidities, mobility problems, polypharmacy, and self-empowerment capacity acting as barriers to care.32,33,35,37,42,47–51 | Workload and time pressures; inadequate funding and staff numbers (clinical and administrative); role of structured management systems; access issues for patients, including to self-management education; mixed relationships and communication with specialist teams; limited services for specific patient-groups (for example, older people); role of insurance companies in driving disease-management activity; lack of public health support for prevention awareness; lack of agreed national management protocol; and continuing clinical education provision.32,34,35,37,40,42,45–49,51,52,53–55 |
Glycaemic control | Nurses feeling isolated in role as single diabetes nurse in practice when considering converting to insulin.43 | Accommodating insulin therapy with patients’ lifestyles; patients’ ability to care for themselves adversely affected by physical impairments; and patients’ limited financial resources affecting decisions about starting insulin.30,31,39 | Lack of evidence base and clear guidelines; inadequate funding for equipment; workload; time pressures; staffing levels, language skills, and roles (for example, nurse educators); patient support; availability of interpreters; lack of same-physician continuity of care; access to and communication with specialist teams; the need for protocols; and advantages of primary care management.30,33,39,42–44,56–59 | |
Cholesterol control | – | – | Lack of structured approach to diabetes management.38 | |
Blood pressure | – | Patients’ financial situation and occupational constraints acting as a barrier to care.36 | Workload and time pressures, preferences of paper-based systems, and inadequate financial compensation.36,60 | |
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Knowledge (extracts in Knowledge domain with * also coded to Skills domain) | General | Lack of knowledge in self and among colleagues about causes, evidence base, guidelines, services, required lifestyle changes, patient self-management education and cultural beliefs; clinician-education as facilitator of care; and nurses seen as more up to date.32,40,42,44*,46*,47*,48,50,53,61* | Clinician–patient education gap with patients’ knowledge deficits leading to non-compliance coupled with concern about information overload and whether education effective.35,42,45,46*,48,49*,51 | – |
Glycaemic control | Initiating insulin seen as a simple process by some; clinician confidence and uncertainty in how to initiate insulin; inaccurate beliefs about self-monitoring; and limited familiarity/uncertainty with guideline recommendations.32*,33,39*,41,42*,43*,47*,59* | Limited knowledge of: self-testing; insulin use; erectile dysfunction on insulin; age when insulin required; and long-term effects of diabetes.26,33,39*,41,58 | – | |
Cholesterol control | Insufficient knowledge of guideline recommendations.38 | Insufficient knowledge leading to discontinuation of medicine.38 | – | |
Blood pressure | – | Level of understanding affecting amount of information given about BP control.35,36 | – | |
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Social/professional role and identity | General | Need for greater team working and engagement with diabetes strategies; emphasis on nurses’ role and clarity about responsibilities; and professionalism as an internal drive.32,34,37,42,45,49,51,55,62 | Taking responsibility for managing diabetes balanced with expediency of a paternalistic approach.45–47 | Problems of coordination between professionals’ and nurses’ existing multiple responsibilities.40,48 |
Glycaemic control | Nurses as complementary to physicians’ role; concern as to where responsibility lay; diabetes care as part of an ongoing relationship with the patient; closer liaison with secondary care a solution.42,58,60 | Sometimes reluctant but empowered by greater involvement in their diabetes care; finding insulin treatment socially embarrassing.41,44,58 | – | |
Cholesterol control | Lack of perceived responsibility; secondary care’s role.38 | – | – | |
Blood pressure | Role of other primary care professionals and patients in BP target decisions.35 | – | – | |
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Emotion | General | Frustration at patients’ compliance levels and prognosis uncertainty/timeframe, and using scare tactics with patients.32,37,40,42,45–47,58,61 | Depression, anxiety, and fear barriers to self-management, although emotional response can be an opportunity for behaviour change.32,37,47 | Feeling overwhelmed by workload and guidelines, and frustrated when secondary care transfer patients with drugs that cannot be prescribed within primary care.32,47,48,62 |
Glycaemic control | Feeling overwhelmed by the clinical picture; preventing burnout by partnership working; fear of inducing hypoglycaemia; frustration with: the complexity of regimens, poor control of those with different ethnic backgrounds, and limited evidence base for older people.33,39,42,57,59 | Fear of needles, weight gain, and hypoglycaemia with insulin, and with the connotations of ‘drastic’ measures.30,33,39,41,42 | – | |
Cholesterol control | Frustration at patients’ non-compliance and fears about medication side effects.38 | – | – | |
Blood pressure | Perceived reward of controlling BP.36 | Life stresses taking priority over diabetes control and causing anxiety when discussing BP monitoring or control.35,36,60 | – | |
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Beliefs about consequences | General | Pros/cons of tailored medication intensification; the centrality of the clinician– patient relationship, including patient education.37,40,42,46,47,50,56,61 | Cultural beliefs affecting treatment decisions; non-compliance due to complexity or pain; yet motivated by significant changes in management; and opportunistic diabetes care seen as a dismissal of patients’ primary complaint.32,40,47,48,50,52 | – |
Glycaemic control | Concerns around: older patients’ response to medication; urine testing; and starting insulin, although some advantages recognised; physicians’ beliefs about consequences of diabetes shaped by medical school exposure.33,41–43,39,58,61 | Lack of appreciation of effects of poor control; belief that diet and exercise changes would suffice; compliance issues with medication intensification; belief that insulin could cause complications; and faith in traditional remedies.30,33,39,58,61 | – | |
Cholesterol control | Concerns about side effects of medication.38 | Reluctance to start medication due to side effects.38 | – | |
Blood pressure | ‘Vigorous’ guidelines encourage more aggressive management.36 | Resistance to taking additional medication if out-of-clinic BP readings lower than in clinic.60 | – | |
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Skills (extracts in Knowledge domain with * also coded to Skills domain) | General | Importance of interpersonal skills facilitating holistic care, good communication, and behaviour change skills, although can be a mismatch between training and real-life practice.32,34,37,40,45,46,52,54 | – | – |
Glycaemic control | Ability to maintain skills in insulin conversion.43 | Patients’ ability to self-care influencing clinicians’ decisions whether to initiate insulin.31 | – | |
Blood pressure | – | Those with poor technical skills could struggle with telemedicine.60 | – | |
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Social influences | General | The ‘superior’ specialist having a different message for the patient.45 | Influence of family and cultural beliefs, and specific problems with hard-to-reach or isolated groups.32,37,42,45,47,48,51 | Increased attention to diabetes in health care and the media but a lack of public health campaigns to highlight the seriousness of the condition.40,51 |
Glycaemic control | Perceived pressure to take on the responsibility for converting patients to insulin; nurses struggling to achieve external legitimacy in insulin initiation.43,59 | Community and spiritual/religious beliefs affecting views about insulin.30,44 | – | |
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Beliefs about capabilities | General | Variation in abilities to adopt proactive strategies to change patients’ behaviour, circumstances or diabetic control, and low levels of trust in non-physician colleagues’ abilities.32,37,40,45,48,53 | Reliance on medication rather than lifestyle modification.45 | – |
Glycaemic control | Relative inexperience and lack of confidence prescribing insulin; nurses better at guideline adherence.30,33,39,43 | Concern that those with impairments or older people could find complicated regimens difficult.33,42 | – | |
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Reinforcement | General | Collegial support to improve treatment in difficult patients and not wanting to ‘nag’ patients.45,46 | Physical disability and lack of immediate response to treatment affecting engagement; patient compliance affected only by major adverse events.32,40,42 | – |
Glycaemic control | Reinforcement of clinical judgements by specialist colleagues and patients’ assessments; referring to specialists about whom there had been positive feedback.33,57 | Symptom improvement and emphasising the value of treatment to reinforce practice.33,44 | Incentive payments for insulin initiation.59 | |
Blood pressure | Using raised BP readings to reinforce lifestyle advice.35 | – | – | |
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Intentions | General | Compliance, avoidance of complications, and professional conscience as motivators.34,49,50 | Non-compliance with diet or treatment despite awareness of consequences.42,47 | – |
Glycaemic control | – | Non-compliance with dietary practices except before clinic visits.48 | – | |
Cholesterol control | – | Medication ‘intentional non-compliance’.38 | – | |
Blood pressure | – | Non-compliance related to personal attitude to diabetes.36 | – | |
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Behavioural regulation | General | Visual prompts; self-management education; reluctance to ‘nag’; and getting used to developments in care.32,42,45,51 | Challenge of being disciplined to achieve good diabetic control.42 | – |
Glycaemic control | – | Insulin dose changes following self-monitoring and selective timing of adherence to diet.41,48 | – | |
Blood pressure | – | – | Immediate feedback to patients with telemedicine systems.60 | |
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Optimism | General | Feeling positive about preventing complications by early intervention.46 | Lack of a positive approach to self-care and minimising the condition, particularly if asymptomatic.37,45,47 | – |
Cholesterol control | Near-target lipid achievement believed to be adequate for some patients.38 | – | – | |
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Memory, attention, and decision processes | General | Using memory rather than guidelines to determine care needs but problems remembering and danger of overloading patients with information.45,52 | Delayed decisions by patients to start insulin due to perceived conflicting information from peers, the media, and healthcare professionals; being unable to sustain lifestyle changes once a lifestyle programme has ended.30,51 | – |
Glycaemic control | Collusion with patients to avoid starting insulin.42 | – | – | |
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Goals | General | The need to prioritise care processes and individualise goals for the patient.46,52 | Patients’ lack of ambition, interest, and engagement.62 | – |
Glycaemic control | Converting patient to insulin allowing nurses to ‘see[ing] the job through’.43 | – | – |
BP = blood pressure. Note: clinical targets extracts coded to: general diabetes care; glycaemic control; cholesterol control; BP control; foot exam; smoking; weight management; urine albumin–creatinine ratio/equivalent.