Survey: Global Diabetes – Call For Your Participation
Add bookmark
Peter E. H. Schwarz 1, Gregor Gallein2, Ulrike Rothe1, Gabriele Müller1 Nebojsa Lalic4, Jaakko Tuomilehto3; 1Technical University Dresden, Germany; 2TUMAINI Institute Dresden, Germany, 1University of Belgrade, Serbia 1 Instituto IDIPaz, Spain, for the Global Diabetes Survey team
Summary
Today, there is a controversy about adequate quality of diabetes care and the best concept for the implementation of National Diabetes Plans. In September 2011 the United Nations Summit for Non Communicable Diseases agreed on a consensus that national plans for prevention and control of diabetes have to be developed, implemented and monitored. The goal of the Global Diabetes Survey (GDS) is to present an annual report about the quality of national diabetes care which will be assessed by the use of a standardised questionnaire. The GDS will be based on the appraisals of different groups of people such as patients, diabetes educators and general practitioners. The assessment will be performed globally on an annual basis and the results will make a comparative analysis between regions and countries possible. The findings will be freely available for everyone’s use and will provide information for politicians and stakeholders to encourage them to improve the quality of diabetes care in its medical, economical, structural and political dimensions.
You are the expert and you are invited - if you are interested in the GDS - register on the website www.globaldiabetessurvey.com.
Background
Currently, we are experiencing an epidemic growth of the number of patients with type 2 diabetes worldwide 1.Today, approximately 285 million people have diabetes, corresponding to 6.4% of the world's adult population. The World Economic Forum foresees the development of the diabetes epidemic as a very severe disaster likely to occur in the near future impacting the global economic growth 2. In order to respond rapidly in a coordinated fashion to the health threat diabetes it would be necessary to assess the quality and structures of diabetes care in a standardized way before the implementation of a National Diabetes Plan (NDP) presents the goals, processes, responsibilities, availability and accessibility of diabetes care 3.
In September 2011 the Ministers of Health requested an international cooperation and policy decisions on diabetes at the United Nations Summit for Non Communicable Diseases.There was a consensus across the countries that national plans for prevention and control of chronic diseases have to be developed and implemented and that strategies to monitor the implementation progress need to be established. In December 2010 the Diabetes working group in the European parliament together with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) European Region and the European Coalition on Diabetes presented recommendations on how to improve the quality of diabetes care in the fields of prevention, care, education, research and rehabilitation. The recommendation called for standardized and annual monitoring of the quality of diabetes care in the member states.
As these actions suggest, one of the critical factors to tackle the diabetes epidemic is the implementation of NDP’s. A number of European and internationally countries have currently developed NDP`s with various success4. It was learned that successful NDP`s are individual for the implementing country and successful investment was build on the extensive knowledge of the structure-, process- and outcome-quality of diabetes care as well as consensus between all relevant stakeholders about the implementation process to target action for NDP development 5.
The Global Diabetes Survey (GDS) will monitor the quality of diabetes care in a number of countries aiming to achieve 85% of the countries worldwide in the next 5 years.
Objectives of the GDS:
- To assess annually the quality of national diabetes care in each participating country.
- To identify gaps and barriers in diabetes management in the participating countries and combine inter- and intra-country comparisons as a best practice strategy to provide targeted evidence to decision-makers in the planning, management and organisation of NDPs.
- To analyze annually the changes of the quality of diabetes care by using the follow-up GDS data.
The methodology of the GDS
To achieve these objectives two conditions have to be met:
- A standardised set of questions, which represents adequately the quality of diabetes care in different countries has to be developed.
- These questions have to be answered by the GDS-stakeholder representing all relevant areas and focus groups in diabetes care.
Development of the GDS-questionnaire
The quality of diabetes care will be assessed by the use of a standardised questionnaire. Appropriate items for the questionnaire will be obtained reviewing existing diabetes guidelines and National Diabetes Plans. Identified items will be weighted regarding their relevance. Subsequently the GDS-questionnaire will be translated into different languages and an appropriate online format will be developed.
Participants in the GDS - diabetes stakeholders
To achieve a representative image of each country, a relevant number of stakeholders representing diabetes-related groups will be invited to participate in the survey: (1) Patients or patient organisations, (2) General practitioner, (3) Diabetes specialists, (4) Diabetes educators and nurses, (5) Other diabetes carers, (6) Scientists and scientific organisations, (7) Prevention experts, (8) Politicians/policy makers, (9) Health insurance and payer representatives, (10) Industry, (11) Pharmacists, (12) Indirectly affected persons, (13) Other interest groups. The ultimate goal is to recruit per 250,000 patients with diabetes mellitus in a country one person in each stakeholder volunteers group per country. In some smaller countries it will not be possible to get stakeholders in each group in this case the group 1 – 4 are mandatory. First steps are implemented so that today already 650 stakeholders from 95 countries are registered.
Join and become a volunteer
You are the right person to participate in the GDS and your opinion is very valuable to us and the global diabetes community.
Please go to www.globaldiabetessurvey.com and register yourself.
If you are an approved GDS stakeholder you will receive an e-mail with a link to the survey questions in February/March. This first pilot testing will be limited to Europe. After this you will receive an e-mail each year in September or October inviting you to fill out the survey questions. Finally, the project results will be communicated on November 14th at World Diabetes Day.
References:
1. IDF. Diabetes Atlas Fourth Edition. Vol 4. Brussels: International Diabetes Federation; 2009.
2. Zimmet P, Alberti KG, Shaw J. Global and societal implications of the diabetes epidemic. Nature. 2001;414(6865):782-787.
3. Schwarz PE. Public health implications: translation into diabetes prevention initiatives--four-level public health concept. Med Clin North Am. Mar 2011;95(2):397-407, ix.
4. Colagiuri R, Short R, Buckley A. The status of national diabetes programmes: A global survey of IDF member associations. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. Feb 2011;87(2):137-142.
5. Rothe U, Muller G, Schwarz PE, et al. Evaluation of a diabetes management system based on practice guidelines, integrated care, and continuous quality management in a Federal State of Germany: a population-based approach to health care research. Diabetes Care. May 2008;31(5):863-868.
Corresponding author Prof. Dr. Peter E.H. Schwarz, Department for Prevention and Care of Diabetes, Medical Clinic III, University Clinic Carl Gustav Carus, Technical University Dresden, Fetscherstraße 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany, Tel.: +49 351/458-2715, Fax: +49 351/458-7319, E-mail: peter.schwarz@uniklinikum-dresden.de
[surveycode]
