糖尿病が強く疑われる高齢者が受診をしない理由に関する質的研究

The objective of the present study was to clarify the reasons why elderly persons with strongly suspected diabetes did not seek medical attention even after being advised to consult a doctor according to the medical checkup results. The subjects were nine elderly people aged 65 or over who were advised to undergo ‘complete examination/medical treatment’ according to their medical checkup results but failed to go to hospital for one year. A semi-structured interview was conducted on them and the results obtained were subjected to a qualitative and descriptive analysis. The present study clarified that these elderly people postponed going to hospital because of their tendencies to consider the medical checkup results as less serious, disregard them or misunderstand them, reluctance to seek medical attention or the influence of living conditions. Accordingly, to encourage these elderly people to seek medical attention, an educational program should be provided as a part of their medical checkups, so that they can learn how to read the results correctly.