The Need for Patient Follow-up Strategies to Confirm Diabetes Mellitus in Large Scale Opportunistic Screening.

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycaemia with disturbances of carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Type 2 (non-insulin dependent) Diabetes mellitus is one of the preventable non communicable disease resulting in increased morbidity and mortality in developing countries like India. It is characterized by disorders of insulin action and/or insulin secretion. Number of people with Type 2 Diabetes is growing rapidly worldwide with economic development, ageing populations, increasing urbanisation, dietary changes, reduced physical activity and lifestyle changes. The global prevalence of diabetes is 9%, while in India it is 8.63% and in Tamil Nadu it is 10.4%. National and State programmes on Diabetes control are implemented to combat the disease burden. A detailed review of the programme modules, operational guidelines and visit to health facilities were done to understand the implementation process related to control of Diabetes mellitus. As part of these programmes, opportunistic screening is implemented for target population. Though these programmes are unique, there are few lacunae identified which are missing opportunities and time consuming. There are no strategies so far in such programmes to make the screened positive cases to undergo confirmatory tests. Since screening is only opportunistic, the screened positive cases can be subjected to undergo confirmatory tests by different methods. The specified roles and responsibilities of health staffs at various levels to ensure follow up should also be framed and followed. The objective of this article is to review the existing strategies and to suggest the need for follow up pathways to be adopted from the first contact level to the level of final confirmation for better compliance.