RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Quantifying Worsened Glycemic Control During the COVID-19 Pandemic
JF The Journal of the American Board of Family
                Medicine
JO J Am Board Fam Med
FD American Board of Family Medicine
SP S192
OP S195
DO 10.3122/jabfm.2021.S1.200446
VO 34
IS Supplement
A1 C. J. W. Ledford
A1 C. Roberts
A1 E. Whisenant
A1 C. Walters
A1 K. Akamiro
A1 J. Butler
A1 A. Ali
A1 D. A. Seehusen
YR 2021
UL http://www.jabfm.org/content/34/Supplement/S192.abstract
AB Aims: We hypothesized that glycemic control in outpatients, measured by HbA1c, was worse during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic than in 2019. We sought to quantify how much worse and to determine if social determinants of health were associated with these differences.Materials and Methods: Data were extracted from the electronic medical records of 2 cohorts of patients seen in the family medicine clinic of a southeastern academic health center. Three hundred patients with baseline HbA1c results as well as HbA1c results in May 2019 or May 2020 were evaluated.Results: The groups had similar mean baseline HbA1c (7.65, SD = 1.50 for 2019; 7.61, SD = 1.71 for 2020; P = .85). Mean May HbA1c decreased from baseline in 2019 (7.19, SD = 1.45) but rose in 2020 (7.63, SD = 1.73), a statistically significant difference (P < .01). Controlling for age, gender, race, and insurance status, HbA1c in May 2020 (meanadj = 7.73) was significantly higher than in May 2019 (meanadj = 7.16).Conclusions: During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, glycemic control in our patient population was significantly worse than during the same period in 2019 (mean HbA1c difference = 0.57). Contrary to our expectations, we did not find associations between patient demographic variables and glycemic control, including race.