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Postal methods for monitoring HbA1c in diabetes mellitus: a protocol for systematic review

Jack Colley1, Hajira Dambha-Miller2, Beth Stuart3

  • 1Southern Health Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK.

BJGP Open
|June 21, 2022
PubMed

Insights

Home-based finger-prick blood tests for HbA1c could offer a viable alternative to clinic visits for people with diabetes. This systematic review assesses the accuracy, reliability, and patient acceptance of self-collected capillary HbA1c samples.

Area of Science:

  • Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases
  • Clinical Chemistry
  • Health Services Research

Background:

  • Diabetes affects 463 million globally, with UK patients offered annual HbA1c monitoring for glycaemic control.
  • Missed reviews correlate with poorer health outcomes; pandemic saw a 77% drop in UK HbA1c monitoring.
  • Investigating alternative HbA1c monitoring methods is crucial for diabetes management.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the agreement and correlation between self-collected capillary HbA1c and standard venous samples.
  • To assess the reliability, repeatability, and storage effects of capillary HbA1c testing.
  • To explore patient acceptability and safety of postal self-collection methods for HbA1c.

Main Methods:

  • A systematic review of literature will be conducted.
  • Searches will include MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and grey literature up to 2021.
  • The COSMIN Risk of Bias tool will assess study quality regarding reliability and measurement error.

Main Results:

  • This section is to be populated upon study completion.
  • The review will synthesize findings on capillary HbA1c accuracy against venous standards.
  • Data on test-retest reliability and pre-analytical variables will be analyzed.

Conclusions:

  • Postal self-collection of capillary HbA1c samples may offer a practical alternative to routine venous sampling.
  • Findings will inform the potential implementation of home-based HbA1c monitoring for diabetes patients.
  • The review will highlight the acceptability and safety profile of patient self-collection methods.
Abstract

Keywords:
diabetes mellitusdried blood spot testingglycated hemoglobin Aprimary health care

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