Nine articles, reporting seven trials with 11,402 participants (range 201 to 3,953), were included in the review. Three trials included adult only patients with type 2 diabetes, two included adults with type 1 or 2 diabetes, one included only adolescents with type 1 diabetes and one specified only "patients with diabetes". The proportion of patients who did not complete the trial ranged from 1.1% to 34.4%. Studies were rated "low" or "moderate" risk of bias on all criteria, with the exception of one study which was rated as "high" risk of bias for adequacy of sequence generation; full details of the risk of bias assessment were reported in an online appendix.
There was no significant difference between intervention (point of care testing measurement) and comparator (laboratory-based measurement), for the mean change from baseline in glycated haemoglobin, based on three studies. There was no significant between-study heterogeneity.
Four studies reported data on the proportion of patients achieving target glycated haemoglobin at the end of the study. Heterogeneity in study populations and outcome measurement methods precluded meta-analysis. Two studies reported odds ratios favouring rapid testing and three studies reported no significant difference between the two measurement methods.
Four studies, using different outcome measure, reported data on treatment intensification; individual study results were reported in the paper and rates of treatment intensification appeared similar between groups.
Three studies assessed various aspects of patient satisfaction; two reported significant positive results in favour of point of care testing and one reported no significant difference between the testing methods.