Abstract
The objective was to investigate the management of type 2 diabetes patients referred to a tertiary teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. This was a cross-sectional study of 400 type 2 diabetes patients referred to an outpatient diabetic center of a tertiary referral teaching hospital. Medical records of the patients were reviewed by a pharmacist prospectively at the time of referral. Then after two years of follow-up patients data were collected retrospectively to evaluate diabetes management during that period. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20 for windows (R) (IBM, New York). The mean age for the study population was 53.8 +/- 11 (range 18-80) years, patients were predominantly male 205 (51.3%) and 261 (65.3%) have been diagnosed with diabetes for the past 2-10 years. Patients on oral hypoglycemic agents increased from 73.8% of the patients upon referral to 96.5% of the patients two years after referral. Patients on metformin increased from 17.5% of the patients upon referral to 46.0% of the patients two years after referral. There was a significant change in the mean values of majority the biochemical indicators of type 2 diabetes patients upon referral and two years after referral. The mean fasting blood sugar level has significantly reduced from 218.0 +/- 72.7 to 163.6 +/- 55.0 (p < 0.001). Hemoglobin A1C has also decreased significantly from 9.8 +/- 1.7 to 7.7 +/- 3.1 (p < 0.001). The percentage of patients with a target hemoglobin A1C < 7% increased from 10 (2.5%) before referral to 186 (46.5%) after referral. Type 2 diabetes patients referred to our clinic were well managed and their outcomes were significantly improved two years after referral. Our treatment modality significantly reduced the cardiovascular risk associated with type 2 diabetes.