Diabetes mellitus monitoring and control among adults in Australian general practice: a national retrospective cohort study

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated whether the monitoring and control of clinical parameters are better among patients with newly compared with past recorded diabetes diagnosis. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: MedicineInsight, a national general practice database in Australia. PARTICIPANTS: 101 875 ‘regular’ adults aged 18+ years with past recorded (2015–2016) and 9236 with newly recorded (2017) diabetes diagnosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Two different groups of outcomes were assessed in 2018. The first group of outcomes was the proportion of patients with clinical parameters (ie, glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, estimated glomerular filtration rate and albumin-to-creatinine ratio) monitored at least once in 2018. The second group of outcomes were those related to diabetes control in 2018 (HbA1c ≤7.0%, (BP) ≤140/90 mm Hg, total cholesterol <4.0 mmol/L and LDL-C <2.0 mmol/L). Adjusted ORs (OR(adj)) and adjusted probabilities (%) were obtained based on logistic regression models adjusted for practice variables and patients’ socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. RESULTS: The study included 111 111 patients (51.7% men; mean age 65.3±15.0 years) with recorded diabetes diagnosis (11.0% of all 1 007 714 adults in the database). HbA1c was monitored in 39.2% (95% CI 36.9% to 41.6%) of patients with newly recorded and 45.2% (95% CI 42.6% to 47.8%) with past recorded diabetes (OR(adj) 0.78, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.82). HbA1c control was achieved by 78.4% (95% CI 76.7% to 80.0%) and 54.4% (95% CI 53.4% to 55.4%) of monitored patients with newly or past recorded diabetes, respectively (OR(adj) 3.11, 95% CI 2.82 to 3.39). Less than 20% of patients with newly or past recorded diabetes had their HbA1c, BP and total cholesterol levels controlled (OR(adj) 1.08, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.21). CONCLUSIONS: The monitoring of clinical parameters was lower among patients with newly than past recorded diabetes. However, diabetes control was similarly low in both groups, with only one in five monitored patients achieving control of all clinical parameters.