Abstract

Background

Type 2 diabetes is now recognized as a major public health concern but its burden on society is under-researched.

Methods

TARDIS was a postal survey of 1578 people with type 2 diabetes across four UK centres, incorporating measures of resource use, treatment satisfaction and health-related quality of life (HrQoL). The findings included data on the EQ-5D that enabled the HrQoL burden of the disease to be established by comparison with equivalent data for the general population and the diabetic population as a whole from the 1996 Health Survey of England.

Results

The results indicate a significant deficit experienced by people with type 2 diabetes vs. their age group peers in the general population. The proportion of TARDIS respondents reporting problems increases in relation to the presence of complications, and microvascular complications appear to have more impact than macrovascular complications.

Conclusion

This confirms the need for treatment policies to focus on reducing the risk of such complications and hence improve patients' HrQoL.