Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcers Based on an Interdisciplinary Team Approach: Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study of Patients' Views on Quality of Care.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate patients' perception and quality of diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) care delivered by an interdisciplinary team approach (ITA).

Design: Exploratory cross-sectional study.

Subjects and setting: Twenty patients with a healed plantar DFU were recruited from an interdisciplinary Wound Care clinic of a Canadian University affiliated hospital. Their mean age was 64 years (75% were males [n = 15]), 18 (90%) were living with type 2 diabetes, and 45% (n = 9) had osteomyelitis in the previous year of their enrollment in the study.

Methods: The validated short form of the Quality From the Patient's Perspective questionnaire was used to evaluate quality of care dimensions (medical-technical competence of the caregivers; physical-technical conditions of the care organization; degree of identity-orientation in the attitudes and actions of the caregivers; and sociocultural atmosphere of the care organization).

Results: Respondents reported experiencing a high level of quality care with an ITA. All indicators of patient-perceived reality of care delivered were superior or equal related to their subjective importance in all dimensions of quality care (with scores ranging from 3.85 to 4.00 on a 4-Point Likert scale). Patients' satisfaction regarding the ITA was high.

Conclusions: Study findings suggest that an ITA model provided high quality of care for treating DFUs for all quality dimensions judged important for patients.