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01-31-2018 | Screening | News

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Anxiety, depression screening does not improve diabetes risk prediction

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medwireNews: Screening for anxiety and depression does not improve the ability of existing tools to predict diabetes risk, despite being predictive in isolation, report researchers in BMJ Open.

Evan Atlantis (Western Sydney University, New South Wales, Australia) and team found that a score of 19 or higher on the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) predicted the onset of type 2 diabetes with a sensitivity of 77% and a specificity of 53%.

Yet the addition of this variable had very little effect on the predictive ability of a model based on risk factors including age, family diabetes history, and BMI that are commonly included in existing predictive tools such as the AUSDRISK, QDScore, and Framingham Offspring Study tools.

The researchers therefore believe that screening for anxiety and depression “is unlikely to confer benefit” and could lead to overtreatment. However, they note that K10’s independent association with diabetes risk suggests that it may identify patients who are missed with current risk assessment tools, “which might be clinically important for treatment decision making for the management of psychological comorbidity.”

The study cohort comprised 51,588 participants of the 45 and Up Study, 2.1% of whom developed diabetes during an average 3.4 years of follow-up.

By Eleanor McDermid

medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group

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