[Notification of family history of diabetes]

In clinical practice the presence of a positive family history of diabetes mellitus is one of the criteria to perform a glucose screening test. However it has been shown not to be always reliable. The aim of this study is to verify the concordance between the data referred by a group of daughters about the existence of diabetes mellitus in both parents, the data given by their parents, and a corroboration by blood glucose testing of the parents. A total of 82 triads (father, mother and daughter) were studied. The daughters were healthy and belonged to a cohort of perinatal studies of the Instituto Nacional de Perinatologia in Mexico City; they were not pregnant and had both patients alive, who agreed to participate in the study. Each daughter was asked about her parents history of diabetes having three options as an answer: yes, no, do not know. The same information about themselves was asked to the parents separately, not giving a chance to the members of the triad to communicate among themselves. The necessary glucose tests were performed to integrate a diagnosis by accepted international criteria. A chi-square test was used to compare the data referred by parents and daughters; agreement percentage (kappa values) were calculated. A prespecified order test was performed to the answers given and evaluated by occurrence rates (Bartholomew's test). In the latter analysis there were significant differences (p < 0.001) between the answer given by the parents, daughter and the confirmed blood glucose values. No differences were found between what the parents said, nor in what they said and what the daughters answered.