The prevalence of diabetes in a Swedish population of 280,411 inhabitants. A report from the Skaraborg Diabetes Registry.
OBJECTIVE
To estimate the prevalence of known diabetes in a Swedish county (Skaraborg) and to evaluate capture-recapture methods for validation of the diabetes prevalence.


METHODS
Four sources were used to find known diabetic patients: 1) the Skaraborg Diabetes Registry (SDR), a case-finding inventory, 2) an administrative hospital registry, 3) a registry for the retinopathy screening program, and 4) a pharmacy prescription inventory. The capture-recapture method was applied to various combinations of sources to determine the prevalence of diabetes.


RESULTS
The completeness of the SDR was 88.4 +/- 1.3%, indicating a diabetes prevalence of 3.20 +/- 0.08%. When the SDR was not used as one of the sources, the estimated prevalence varied between 2.2 and 4.5%.


CONCLUSIONS
A case-finding registry is important in reliably estimating the prevalence of diabetes.
Berger
B
B
Department of Medicine, Skövde Central Hospital, Sweden.
Stenström
G
G
Chang
Y F
YF
Sundkvist
G
G
D015992:Body Mass Index; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity; D015995:Prevalence; D012042:Registries; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology