A simple diabetes vascular severity staging instrument and its application to a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal adult cohort of north Australia

Gibson, Odette R., Segal, Leonie, and McDermott, Robyn A. (2012) A simple diabetes vascular severity staging instrument and its application to a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal adult cohort of north Australia. BMC Health Services Research, 12. 185. pp. 1-7.

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Abstract

Background: To develop an instrument that predicts diabetes-related vascular disease severity using routinely collected data on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults with type 2 diabetes, in the absence of diabetes duration.

Methods: A complex diabetes severity classification system was simplified and adapted for use with an Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult population with type 2 diabetes in north Queensland. Detailed vascular health risks and morbidities were mapped to routinely collected measures. Individual-level health screening, hospital separation and mortality data were linked and used to plot mean monthly in-patient hospital cost and percent mortality by disease severity as defined by the newly developed instrument, to test construct validity.

Results: The revised instrument consists of four combined diabetes-related microvascular and macrovascular stages that range from least severe (stage 1) to severe irreversible vascular impairment (stage 4). When applied to data of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian population the instrument showed good construct validity, predicting higher hospital cost and mortality as vascular disease severity increased.

Conclusions: This instrument discriminates between levels of diabetes-related vascular disease severity, displays good construct validity by predicting increased hospital cost and mortality with worsening severity and can be populated with routinely collected data. It may assist with future health service research and its use could be extended to practice settings for health care planning for diabetes management programs and monitoring vascular disease progression.

Item ID: 35783
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1472-6963
Keywords: diabetes vascular staging instrument, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians
Additional Information:

© 2012 Gibson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funders: National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)
Projects and Grants: NHMRC ID 456402
Date Deposited: 15 Oct 2014 16:48
FoR Codes: 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111701 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9203 Indigenous Health > 920301 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health - Determinants of Health @ 100%
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