1597-P: Influence of Unmet Health Care Needs on Overall Health Care Satisfaction and Wishes Being Considered in Older Patients with Diabetes

Introduction and Objective: Unmet healthcare needs are an increasing problem for older adults with type 2 diabetes, as they are often faced with multimorbidity and geriatric syndromes, which complicate their care. These unmet healthcare needs can influence not only overall satisfaction with the quality, cost, and convenience of your healthcare but also how often your wishes were considered. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of unmet healthcare needs of older adults with diabetes on their overall satisfaction with healthcare and how often their wishes were considered.Methods: We used data from the 2022 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and included individuals who self-reported having a diabetes diagnosis. Logistic regression analysis was utilized to assess the association between overall satisfaction with healthcare and how often your wishes were considered (outcomes) with unmet healthcare needs. Covariates include age, sex, race, ethnicity, educational status, marital status, household income, and diabetes duration.Results: A total of 2,064 participants were included in the analyses. When adjusting for all covariates, unmet health care needs was associated with decreased odds of healthcare satisfaction by 74% {OR [0.26] (95% CI [.14, .48], p <.0001) and the odds of wishes being considered decrease by odds of 68% (OR =0.32 (95% CI= [.22, .47], p <.0001) among participants who have unmet healthcare needs.Conclusion: Having unmet healthcare needs can significantly influence overall satisfaction, and participants’ wishes being considered. These results suggest that perhaps physicians need to better understand where patients are coming from to improve health outcomes.C.L. Ortz: None. S. Khanal: None. B.L. Smalls: None.