Diabetes: Scottish Diabetes Survey

The Scottish Diabetes Survey is the key source of information on diabetes in Scotland. Table 1 shows the rise in the proportion of the Scottish population included in diabetes registers. This rise is likely to reflect  increases in the risk of diabetes as well as other factors such as an ageing population, earlier diagnosis and better survival of people with diabetes.

In 2009 the prevalence of diabetes in individual Scottish NHS boards varied from 3.9% to 5.0%. Differences in population age profiles may contribute to this variation. Type 1 diabetes accounted for 12.6% of cases where the type was recorded. In 2009  90% of patients with type 2 diabetes had a record of an HbA1c test (1) within the previous 15 months and 81% had a record of eye-screening in the preceding 15 months. Recording of ethnic group increased from 43% in 2008 to 56% in 2009.

Table 1. Prevalence of diabetes in Scotland 2001-2009, the Scottish Diabetes Survey (2)

Year	Crude Prevalence (%)
2009	4.4
2008	4.3
2007	4.1
2006	3.9
2005	3.4
2004	3.2
2003	2.6
2002	2.0
2001	2.1

(1) HbA1c (glycosylated haemoglobin) is a test that measures long term levels of blood glucose, and therefore gives an indication of the quality of diabetes control.

(2) These survey reports are available from the publications section of the Diabetes in Scotland website.