A Colombian diabetes risk score for detecting undiagnosed diabetes and impaired glucose regulation

Aims (i) To develop a diabetes mellitus risk score model for the Colombian population (ColDRISC); and (ii) to evaluate the accuracy of the ColDRISC unknown Type 2 diabetes mellitus Methods Cross-sectional screening study of the 18–74 years-old population of a health-care insurance company (n = 2060) in northern Colombia. Lifestyle habits and risk factors for diabetes mellitus were assessed by an interview using a questionnaire consisting of information regarding sociodemographic factors, history of diabetes mellitus, tobacco consumption, hypertension, nutritional and physical activity habits. Anthropometric measurements and an oral glucose tolerance test were taken. The sensitivity and the specificity, receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves, were calculated for the ColDRISC and FINDRISC. Results The area under the ROC curve for unknown Type 2 diabetes mellitus was 0.74 (95% CI: 0.70–0.79) for the ColDRISC and 0.73 for the FINDRISC (95% confidence intervals [CI] 0.69–0.78). Using the risk score cutoff value of 4 in the ColDRISC to detect Type 2 diabetes mellitus resulted in a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 67%. Conclusions The characteristics of the ColDRISC show that it can be used as a simple, safe, and inexpensive test to identify people at high risk for Type 2 diabetes mellitus in Colombia.