Abstract
Background: Early identification of patients with prediabetes stage can help prevent and reverse diabetes mellitus. However, the incidence of diabetes keeps increasing. Physicians' knowledge about prediabetes can influence management of these patients.
Objectives: To assess the knowledge of primary care physicians [PCPs] about the diagnostic criteria, complications, screening criteria, screening age and management of prediabetes.
Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in primary health care centers in Riyadh city from August 2015 to April 2016. The questionnaire included nine knowledge assessment questions and was distributed to 155 PCPs.
Results: Female doctors represented 58.2% of the sample, and 40.5% of PCPs had experience of 5-10 years duration. The proportion of correct answers varied among different questions, ranging from 43.8% to 95.4%. The mean score of the total knowledge was 6.3 +/-.1.6. Female doctors obtained a significantly higher mean score of knowledge than male doctors. There was no significant association between the nationality and years of experience with the total knowledge about prediabetes.
Conclusion: Our study showed that PCPs have a good overall knowledge about prediabetes; however, their knowledge about complications and screening criteria was poor, which could be one of the causes of high diabetes incidence. So PCPs need a focused educational program on these topics.