Public Counseling: An Educational Model to Improve Medication Adherence in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a major chronic illness worldwide, including in Indonesia. Also, the adherence to antidiabetic medicines remains unsatisfactory. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of public counseling to increase medication adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods: This prospective study used a pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design. It was conducted at Pondok Kelapa primary health care center in East Jakarta. The intervention was public counseling that was delivered once per month for three months (12 weeks) of the study period. The A1C (glycated haemoglobin) was assessed twice, i.e., before and after the intervention. Results: Among the 30 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 83.3% of them had the A1C level >6.5%. After 12 weeks of intervention, the percentage of A1C significantly declined to 23.3% (p=0.00). Conclusion: Public counseling is effective to increase medication adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus