Adapting Diabetes Risk Scores for Jordan

Area of Science:

• Endocrinology
• Public Health
• Preventive Medicine

Background:

• Diabetes risk scores are valuable non-invasive tools for screening individuals at high risk of diabetes.
• Assessing the predictive accuracy of various diabetes risk-scoring systems is crucial for effective public health strategies.
• Understanding the performance of different risk scores in diverse populations, like Jordanian adults, is essential for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate and compare the predictive capabilities of multiple diabetes risk-scoring systems.
• To determine the most effective risk score for identifying pre-diabetes and diabetes in the Jordanian adult population.
• To assess the correlation between different risk scores and measured fasting blood sugar levels.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 392 Jordanian adults from 54 primary healthcare centers.
• Calculation of multiple diabetes risk scores, including the American Diabetes Association, Canadian, Finland (FINDRISC), British, German, and Australian risk scores.
• Measurement of fasting blood sugar (FBS) for all participants, followed by ROC analysis and logistic regression.

Main Results:

• The Finland Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC), British, and Australian risk scores showed strong inter-correlation and moderate, significant correlation with FBS.
• Other risk scores demonstrated weaker correlations with FBS.
• FINDRISC emerged as the superior risk score in predicting high FBS and identifying pre-diabetes and diabetes, based on ROC analysis and logistic regression.

Conclusions:

• The FINDRISC demonstrated the best performance among the evaluated risk scores for predicting pre-diabetes, diabetes, and absence of diabetes.
• The study recommends the implementation of the FINDRISC assessment tool in Jordan for diabetes screening.
• Utilizing FINDRISC can enhance early detection and management of diabetes in the Jordanian population.