Use of smartphone-based self-monitoring blood glucose application in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients in Indonesia: A pre and post-test study

Abstract

Background: The utilization of technology in diabetes management, especially self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG), is growing rapidly. However, the effectiveness of SMBG applications on the smartphone is not yet known. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of using a smartphone-based SMBG application in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in the Indonesian population. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental (before and after) study conducted at three tertiary hospitals in Jakarta and Malang, Indonesia. Inclusion criteria were T2DM patients aged 18 years and above who have been familiar with performing SMBG and manually record the results. All subjects were asked to use a smartphone-based SMBG application named Teman Diabetes application for six months, and patients’ SMBG performance was assessed at the end of the study Bivariate analysis using T-test or with the Mann Whitney U test performed. Chi-square test is used to analyze the categorical with Risk Ratio (RR) and 95% Confidence Interval (CI). The p-value <0.05 (two-tailed) is considered statically meaningful. Results: From 100 patients enrolled in the study, 78 patients completed the follow-up. We found that the use of the SMBG application helped the subject overcome the difficulty in remembering to perform SMBG (p=0.004), helped change the subject’s perception of the benefits of SMBG (p=0.049), improved the subject’s diet pattern (p=0.006), and decreased the number of subjects who stopped performing SMBG due to self-perception of lack of benefit SMBG activity (p=0.049). Conclusions: The study found that using the SMBG application helps manage diabetes in T2DM patients.