LIDIA Study: Diabetes mellitus type 2 Risk in a rural population of the Azores

Objectives: Characterize the patients registered with the Primary Health Care Centre at Livramento (Azores) about the risk of developing Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 (DM2). Type of study: Cross observational analytical study, hold in the period of 6 months, from September 2012 to February 2013. Location: Livramento Primary Health Care Centre. Population: Patients registered with Livramento Primary Health Care Centre aged 18 to 79 years old (N = 3616). Methods: The Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) was applied to a random sample of 278 patients. The variables from the questionnaire have been studied. Epiinfo and Excel (R) have been used in statistics. Results: From the 278 patients who participated in this study, 42% had a moderate/high risk to develop the DM2 within ten years. Regarding the risk factors associated to the disease, 64% had IMC superior to 25 Kg/m(2), 80% of the women and 67% of the men had a high waist circumference measurement identified with central obesity and 72% did not practice any physical exercise, regularly. Concerning previous personal antecedents, 28% had high blood pressure and 11% had already had hyperglycemia; 52% had at least, one member of the immediate family that had already been diagnosed with DM2. Conclusions: This study shows the importance of identifying people that have an increased risk of developing DM2 and the necessity of having an early intervention in order to modify the risk factors to prevent the disease. The results showed that about 1 in each 4 patients had an increased risk of developing diabetes in the next 10 years (FINDRISK >= 15). (C) 2014 Sociedade Portuguesa de Endocrinologia, Diabetes e Metabolismo. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U.