Skip to main content
. 2021 Jan 5;7:1. doi: 10.1186/s40842-020-00115-2

Table 3.

Distribution of reasons for insulin discontinuation

Reason Category Number of Events % Unique Patients % Unique Reasons
Blood glucose control 1612 76.0 33.2
Weight loss 901 42.5 18.5
Non-insulin diabetes medication started 810 38.2 16.7
Hypoglycemia 585 27.6 12.0
Financial 207 9.8 4.3
Diet 202 9.5 4.2
Decreased food intake 187 8.8 3.9
Patient preference 83 3.9 1.7
Bariatric procedure 60 2.8 1.2
Steroid taper 39 1.8 0.8
Other side effects 17 1.1 0.35
After pregnancya 3 0.19 0.06
Patient cannot manage 2 0.12 0.04
Decreased insulin requirements 1 0.06 0.02
Other 152 9.4 3.1

The denominator for the % Unique Patients column is the number of patients (2121) who discontinued insulin with documented reasons. The denominator for the % Unique Reasons column is the number of unique reasons (4861) in the analytical dataset. As some patients had more than one reason for insulin discontinuation documented, the number of unique reasons is larger than the number of unique patients. Also as a result of multiple insulin discontinuation reasons being sometimes documented for a single patient, the total in column % Unique Patients adds up to more than 100%

aDue to postpartum improvement in glycemic control and / or re-initiation of non-insulin diabetes therapy for pre-existing type 2 diabetes