Comparison of Satisfaction with their Glucose Monitoring Device in Patients Using Flash Glucose Monitoring vs. Patients Using SMBG

Flash Glucose Monitoring offers several benefits to patients such as ease of use and no additional finger pricks. However, there are also some limitations that are being discussed such as perceived lack of accuracy and skin irritations. We analyzed different aspects of patients’ satisfaction with Flash Glucose Monitoring (Flash) by comparing Flash users to patients who use SMBG.
We used the Glucose Monitoring Satisfaction Survey that consists of 15 items with a scale range of 1 to 5. 133 patients who were using Flash for 7.9 ± 9.5 months were compared with 83 patients who used SMBG. As a measure of between-group effect size, Cohens d was used.
In general, Flash users were significantly more satisfied with how things were going with their diabetes (d = 0.31; p = 0.024). SMBG users indicated that measurement takes more time to use (d = 0.67; p < 0.001), makes them worry more (d = 0.32; p = 0.024), is more of a hassle to use (d = 0.45; p = 0.002), and is more painful to use (d = 0.55; p < 0.001) when compared to Flash users. Feeling frustrated with diabetes (d = 0.31; p = 0.027) as well as being depressed (d = 0.40; p = 0.002) were scored lower by Flash users.
In addition, Flash users felt less restricted by diabetes (d = 0.52; p < 0.001) and more spontaneous (d = 0.67; p < 0.001). Interestingly, there were no significant differences regarding the rating of accuracy (d = 0.19; p = 0.157), trusting the numbers (d = 0.01; p = 0.934), and skin irritations (d = 0.26; p = 0.053).
The comparison demonstrated that there are several perceived benefits associated with using Flash. Ease of use and gaining more flexibility or feeling less restricted were important topics for Flash users. Possible limitations of Flash were not perceived as such by the users.