Type 2 diabetes mellitus in Saudi Arabia: A review of the current situation

Objectives: To review the effectiveness of current clinical interventions and integrated care program, and the cost-effectiveness of currently available pharmaceutical interventions in the management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Saudi Arabia. Data Sources and Methods: A systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, ScienceDirect, CENTRAL, and Google Scholar was conducted to identify the relevant articles. A detailed inclusion-exclusion criterion was developed and implemented to screen the abstracts and full-texts. We extracted study data from eligible studies into a data extraction form and categorized into various themes to answer our research question. Study Selection and Themes: Seventeen studies categorized into three themes were included in this review. The evidence was compiled to report the effectiveness of current clinical interventions, integrated care program, and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions. Conclusions: There is strong evidence of safety and efficacy of BIAsp 30 in T2DM patients. In addition, BIAsp 30 with or without OADs is more cost-effective compared with other pharmaceutical interventions. The integrated care program is more effective in reducing HbA1c in diabetic patients compared with usual care programs; however, the evidence is small and more studies are required. Recommendations: Most of the available studies are small cross-sectional studies. There is a dire need to conduct extensive and high-quality studies, with the sample size representative of Saudi T2DM populations, to generate larger data with high-quality evidence to provide more robust evidence in the future.