Abstract Aims To evaluate physicians’ adherence to guidelines by Diabetes Study Group of The Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Turkey (SEMT). Methods The medical records of 1790 patients ...with type 2 diabetes (mean age, 58.7 ± 10.9 years; diabetes duration, 7.7 ± 7.5 years) followed by 180 physicians during last 12 months were reviewed. Adherence to SEMT guidelines was analysed under medical history, physical examination and laboratory evaluations subheadings, each scored on a 10-point scale. Effects of patients’ age, gender, diabetes duration, body mass index, chronic complications, physicians’ specialty and institution on guideline adherence were evaluated. Results Follow-up procedures were >75% compliant for 52% of patients. Full adherence to medical history, physical examination and laboratory aspects of SEMT guidelines were met in 68.6%, 8.3% and 19.2% of patients, respectively. Older patients and males fared better for laboratory evaluations. All aspects of guideline adherence were poor in patients with short duration of diabetes and in the absence of chronic complications. State institutions and family practitioners had lower adherence scores for physical examination and laboratory evaluation. Conclusions Overall guideline adherence of physicians was suboptimal. Educational programs emphasizing the preventive aspect of diabetes management, targeted towards family practitioners and state institutions, may improve guideline adherence and patient outcome.
This study analyzes the data of thrombotic children who were followed up in different pediatric referral centers of Turkey, to obtain more general data on the diagnosis, risk factors, management, and ...outcome of thrombosis in Turkish children. A simple two-page questionnaire was distributed among contact people from each center to standardize data collection. Thirteen pediatric referral centers responded to the invitation and the total number of cases was 271. All children were diagnosed with thromboembolic disease between January 1995 and October 2001. Median age at time of first thrombotic event was 7.0 years. Of the children 4% of the cases were neonates, 12% were infants less than 1 year old, and 17% were adolescents. Thromboembolic event was mostly located in the cerebral vascular system (32%), deep venous system of the limbs, femoral and iliac veins (24%), portal veins (10%), and intracardiac region (9%). Acquired risk factors were present in 86% of the children. Infection was the most common underlying risk factor. Inherited risk factors were present in 30% of the children. FVL was the most common inherited risk factor. Acquired and inherited risk factors were present simultaneously in 19% of the patients. Eleven children had a history of familial thrombosis. Due to the local treatment preferences, the treatment of the children varied greatly. Outcome of the 142 patients (52%) was reported: 88 (62%) patients had complete resolution, 47 (33%) had complications, 12 (9%) had recurrent thrombosis, and 34 (24%) died. Three children (2.1%) died as a direct consequence of their thromboembolic disease. The significant morbidity and mortality found in this study supports the need for multicentric prospective clinical trials to obtain more generalizable data on management and outcome of thrombosis in Turkish children.
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