The psychological distress associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus represents an unmet need for drug discovery

Abstract

Non-adherence to antidiabetic medication remains the major factor contributing to poor clinical outcomes among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study was designed to investigate the cross-sectional association between psychological distress and medication adherence in T2DM patients. Participants were 100 adults with T2DM from a teaching hospital in South India. Psychological distress was assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) was used to assess medication adherence. This study demonstrated that a high proportion of patients (70 %) with T2DM experience psychological distress. Higher self-reported distress was the strongest independent predictor of medication non-adherence (β = −0.1145; P=0.0002). The study highlights that psychological distress in T2DM patients meets important drug discovery criteria such as unmet medical need, disease prevalence, and success probability. Understanding the biological mechanisms that underpin psychological distress would aid in the development of mechanism-based therapies. Better integration of medical and psychosocial treatments in general medical practice may be important to improve treatment adherence and reduce disparities in chronic disease care.