ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Clinical Diabetes
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1443490
This article is part of the Research TopicWorld Diabetes Day 2024: Exploring Mechanisms, Innovations, and Holistic Approaches in Diabetes CareView all 14 articles
Health Coaching for Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes: Assessing the Impact of Health Coaching on HbA1c, Hospitalizations, and Outpatient Services
Provisionally accepted
- Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, United States
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The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) presents substantial personal and public health challenges, necessitating efficacious management approaches, especially for Medicaid populations. This study examines the effect of health coaching on the HbA1c levels, hospitalizations, and outpatient service utilization of Medicaid recipients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) within Orange County's CalOptima Population Health Management Program.To achieve this, we conducted a pre-post secondary data analysis of 4,583 respondents. The study period was from March 2015 to August 2023. Using a paired t-test, our study revealed that the coached group had a greater reduction in HbA1c levels (MD = -1.14, SD = 1.98) compared to the non-coached group (MD = -0.80, SD = 1.96. An independent samples t-test showed that the difference in HbA1c reduction between the coached and non-coached groups was statistically significant (t(4581) = 4.51, p < .001), with the coached group showing greater improvement. Hospitalizations did not show significant changes for either group. However, for ambulatory visits, the coached group had a mean increase of 0.68 visits compared to a decrease of 0.02 visits in the non-coached group, with a t-value of -4.13 (p<0.001), indicating an increased interaction with healthcare providers. Additionally, a binary logistic regression model demonstrated that coached individuals had 1.19 times higher odds (OR = 1.19, 95% CI: 0.96-1.46) of achieving normal HbA1c levels compared to non-coached individuals; however, this difference was not statistically significant. These findings collectively highlight the positive impact of health coaching on diabetes management.
Keywords: healthcare utilization, type 2 diabetes, health coaching, Medicaid, HbA1c
Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 11 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 GITTENS, Medina, Oh, Nelson and Aréchiga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: ANTHONY GITTENS, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, United States
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