Evaluation and Use of Registry Data in a GIS Analysis of Diabetes

OBJECTIVES: to evaluate registry data routinely collected by the Chronic Disease Electronic Management System (CDEMS) in the monitoring of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the Eastern half of the island and use the data to describe the spatial epidemiological patterns of T2DM. DESIGN AND METHOD: The starting point was access and retrival of all exsisting data on the diabetes registry. This data was subsequently validated using handwritten medical records. Several clinical indicators were selected to evaluate the registry. The address of each patient was extracted and georeferenced using ArcGIS 10.0 and several maps were created. RESULTS: The registry had data for thirteen (13) out of the sixteen (16) health facilities. We found that less than 15 percent of all patients actually had diabetic indicator tests done according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The overall prevalence of T2DM was 20.8 per 1000 population. The highest prevalence of diabetes occurred at the northeastern tip of the island. In addition 57.58% of patients with T2DM resided inland and 40.75% of patients residing on the coastal areas. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, we provide evidence that the data collected by the diabetes registry although lacking in many areas was adequate for spatial epidemiological analysis.