BMJ 1994;308:1160-1161 (30 April)

Letters

Screening for diabetes

EDITOR,--Baldev Singh and colleagues reported the results of the British Diabetic Association's study on the effects of advertising on the general public's awareness of diabetes, and they suggested that this approach should be further evaluated as a means of achieving earlier diagnosis of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.1 We have doubts about this conclusion.

One of the reasons for these conclusions was that the approach could be cost effective (pounds sterling 1000 per new case of diabetes). This method has a high false positive rate and a low specificity, as of those presenting to the general practitioner, only 17 (17%) were found to have diabetes. The cost does not compare well with other methods and presumably does not include the cost of performing diagnostic tests on the 82 patients without diabetes.2

In terms of achieving an earlier diagnosis of diabetes, the 10 week campaign revealed an additional 17 cases of diabetes. . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Effect of advertising on awareness of symptoms of diabetes among the general public: the British Diabetic Association Study
B M Singh, J J W Prescott, R Guy, S Walford, M Murphy, and P H Wise
BMJ 1994 308: 632-636. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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