Quality assurance in diabetes care: A population-based study

Abstract

Study objective. The aim was to evaluate to which degree, the recommendations in a health care programme for diabetes were fulfilled. Design. Population based study. Information was obtained from medical records. Settings. One county with 125 000 inhabitants in Northern Sweden. Patients: 4 057 adult patients with either type 2 diabetes (n=3581) or type 1 diabetes (n=446). Main results. Of the patients 34% had good, 22% acceptable and 24% poor metabolic control. Documentation of HbA1c was missing for 22% of the patients. Of patients with type 2 95% were examined for nephropathy, 57% for retinopathy, 63% for neuropathy and 68% for peripheral circulation. The corresponding figures for patients with type 1 were 99%, 90%, 95% and 95% respectively. Conclusions. For patients with type 1 the aims of the health care programme were largely fulfilled concerning examination of long-term complications. In this respect screening of patients with type 2 were unsatisfactory. There is a need to optimise both metabolic control and screening for long-term complications for a large proportion of the patients. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.