An Austrian study into the quality of medical care for type 2 diabetics (formerly: ‘adult diabetes’) has produced worrying results about the quality of care. Only about half of the treated patients had recommended blood sugar, LDL cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Only 13 percent were “in the green zone” for all three problem areas combined.
A total of 8,080 general practitioners and diabetologists from all over Austria were invited to the study “Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism”*. 62 physicians participated. They enrolled ten to fifteen people, with and without type 2 diabetes.
Ultimately, there were 635 diabetics in the sample. The average age was 66.7 years. The average duration of diabetes was ten years and the body mass index was 29 (slightly lower than obesity).
In Austria, 800,000 people are affected
“Diabetes represents a huge burden on healthcare systems, causing healthcare expenditure of approximately €760 billion worldwide and €3 billion (per year) in Austria,” the authors say. It is mainly cardiovascular diseases that occur much earlier and much more often as complications with potentially life-threatening consequences in type 2 diabetics than in non-diabetics.
Therefore, blood sugar levels must be controlled as well as possible and the risk factors for cardiovascular disease must be controlled. However, this is “miles away”:
- “The percentages of participants who achieved LDL-C, HbA1c, blood pressure and all target values were 44 percent (LDL cholesterol; note), 53 percent (less HbA1c of seven percent; note) and 57 percent (blood pressure lower than 140/90 mmHg; note) or 13 percent (achieving all three goals; note).
- Older age, longer duration of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and microvascular complications were associated with suboptimal achievement of metabolic risk factor targets.”
*Harald Sourij from the Metabolic Medicine Study Unit at MedUni Graz and as co-authors, for example, the current President of the Austrian Diabetes Society (ÖDG), Peter Fasching (Vienna), and the other co-authors conducted an Austria-wide crusade section study between 2021 and 2023 (AUSTRO-PROFIT). This was a study with data from private medicine (GPs, diabetologists), i.e. from primary care.
Source: Krone
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