Background: The number of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients and related treatment costs are rapidly increasing. Consequentially, more cost-effective and efficient strategies for the treatment of T2DM are needed. One such strategy is improving patients' self-management. As patients are more and more expected to self-manage their disease, it is important to provide them with suitable self-management support. This way, success of self-management will increase and complications and related costs of T2DM can be reduced. Currently, self-management support is developed mainly from the perspective of health professionals and caregivers, rather than patients. This research focused on gaining a better understanding of patients' perspectives on self-management and support. Methods: Semi-structured interviews, preceded by preparatory assignments, were conducted with ten patients with T2DM treated in Dutch primary care. Results: We found that patients experience 'active' self-management when recently diagnosed. As time progresses and no problems occur, patients do not experience their disease-related behaviour as self-management. Diabetes has 'just' become part of their daily life, now including new routines taking diabetes into account. Conclusions: With this knowledge, support solutions can be designed and implemented that better fit the needs, preferences and abilities of patients with T2DM.

Objective: To describe the interventions, research methods and main findings of the international DISMEVAL project, in which the “real-world” impact of exemplary European disease management approaches was investigated in six countries using advanced analytic techniques. Design: Across countries, the project captured a wide range of disease management strategies and settings; approaches to evaluation varied per country, but included, among others, difference-in-differences analysis and regression discontinuity analysis. Setting: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Spain. Participants: Health care providers and/or statutory insurance funds providing routine data from their disease management interventions, mostly retrospectively. Intervention(s): This study did not carry out an intervention but evaluated the impact of existing disease management interventions implemented in European care settings. Main outcome measure(s): Outcome measures were largely dependent on available routine data, but could concern health care structures, processes, and outcomes. Results: Data covering 10 to 36 months were gathered concerning more than 154,000 patients with three conditions. The analyses demonstrated considerable positive effects of disease management on process quality (Austria, Germany), but no more than moderate improvements in intermediate health outcomes (Austria, France, Netherlands, Spain) or disease progression (Denmark) in intervention patients, where possible compared with a matched control group. Conclusions: Assessing the “real-world” impact of chronic disease management remains a challenge. In settings where randomization is not possible and/or desirable, routine health care performance data can provide a valuable resource for practice-based evaluations using advanced analytic techniques.