How to Talk With Patients About Their Prediabetes Diagnosis
Engage them in behaviors leading toward diabetes prevention.
Start the conversation
Awareness of a diagnosis of prediabetes offers an extraordinary opportunity to prevent or delay progression to type 2 diabetes. Health care teams should offer clear communication that prediabetes places an individual at high risk for development of the disease, but that known, effective treatments are available to prevent or delay progression to type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, limited resources, competing priorities, or time demands may be a barrier to a thorough discussion of type 2 diabetes prevention. It is important to consider that preventing type 2 diabetes will reduce burden on the patient. Patients who make the necessary lifestyle changes for type 2 diabetes prevention can also have improvements in well-being as well as the management of a broad spectrum of health conditions (cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, lipids, depression, physical function, etc.).1