Potential Effect of Vouchers on the Completion of Self-management Education Among Patients With Diabetes.

Diabetes is a significant public health problem in eastern North Carolina, and completion of formal diabetes self-management education (DSME) is low. To seek methods to increase DSME completion, patients with diabetes in an eastern North Carolina regional health care system who had not completed DSME (n = 58) were surveyed during wellness visits to examine attitudes toward the use of vouchers (eg, coupons that purchase healthy food, exercise classes, gym memberships). There was an extremely low awareness (19%) of and referral (5%) to DSME. Most respondents (77%) said they would or might be more likely to complete DSME if they received a voucher at the end. Vouchers for healthy food venues such as farmers' markets were most preferred, and 6 months or less was found to be an acceptable time frame to use the voucher. This study offers some evidence for DSME providers to explore vouchers as one approach to increase program completion.