Level of control among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending diabetic clinic under family medicine compared to diabetic clinic under endocrinology

Mohammed A AlHabdan,1 Mohammed A AlAteeq,2 Fiasal I AlJurbou1 1College of Medicine, King Saud Bin Abdul-Aziz University for Health Sciences, 2Department of Family Medicine and PHC, King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Objectives: To assess and compare level of control among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending diabetic clinic under family medicine service and patients attending diabetic clinics under endocrinology service, and to explore the effect of different variables on the level of control in both groups. Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study by reviewing medical records of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and laboratory studies from Hospital Information System at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, National Guard, Riyadh – Saudi Arabia using predesigned sheet for data collection. Results: Among 352 patients enrolled in the study, 176 (50%) patients were from the family medicine setting and 176 (50%) patients were from the hospital setting. The mean glycosylated hemoglobin for the whole study population was 8.97±1.87. There was no significant difference between the two groups in regard to level of control (9.01±1.75 in the family medicine setting compared to 8.93±1.98 in the hospital setting). No significant correlation was found between level of control and age, duration of disease and number of follow-up visits in both settings. Conclusion: Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in this study were found to be poorly controlled in both the settings, diabetic clinic under family medicine and diabetic clinic under endocrinology. More research should be done to explore quality of care in a family medicine setting for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, as such a setting is expected to be more accessible, more convenient, and more cost effective to patients. Keywords: DM, ambulatory care, family physicians, Saudi Arabia, National Guar