Pre-diabetes and capturing opportunities to raise awareness

This article explores the high risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in adults over 18 years of age and recognises, through the literature, the potential role for nurses in engagement with diabetes prevention strategies in their everyday practice. It considers the latest international projections for diabetes, a critical review of evidence of how diabetes can be prevented and how effective methods of detection of pre-diabetes can be employed with every clinical encounter with adults who perhaps previously were not considered to be 'at risk' of developing type 2 diabetes. Effective consultation approaches to raise diabetes awareness within populations and to enable tailored approaches to public health lifestyle advice are explored, to encourage each practitioner to 'think diabetes' in every clinical encounter.