Assessing diabetes knowledge, perceived standard of care, and perceived barriers to health care among truck drivers with type 2 diabetes mellitus

The truck driving industry in the United States employs over 3 million professional drivers. Drivers who are found to need insulin lose their Commercial Drivers License (CDL) thus limiting their employment options. This study had three purposes; to assess the level of diabetes knowledge among truck drivers with and without type 2 diabetes, to determine to what degree physicians employ the American Diabetes Association (ADA) standard of care for type 2 diabetes (as recalled by the truck drivers) and to explore the internet as a research medium. Based on the researcher's professional experience with truck drivers with type 2 diabetes, this study hypothesized that drivers did not have enough knowledge about diabetes to either prevent the disease or to control their disease so to delay or avoid the need for insulin. Diabetes knowledge was measured with the Diabetes Knowledge Test (DKT) created by the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center. A total of 45 participants completed the DKT, which was made available on an independent website, www.addaform.com. The type 2 diabetics scored significantly higher than those without diabetes, t(42) = 2.31, p = .0258. Diabetic participants were also able to answer “yes” greater than 50% of the time for 96.7% of the questions on the three surveys (At the Doctor's Office, Other Doctors Visits, and My Diabetes Plan) related to the ADA standard of care for type 2 diabetes. The internet allowed for a quick data collection (13 weeks), but produced other issues related to IRB approval and accuracy of the data as reported to the researcher by the data collection website.