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    Patent Pending

    Australian Type 2 Diabetes Risk (AUSDRISK) Assessment Tool

    Estimates risk of developing type 2 diabetes, mainly in Australian patients.

    INSTRUCTIONS

    Not for use in people with diagnosed diabetes. Use for screening in adults ≥25 years of age.

    Note: BMI, waist circumference, or both may be used as the obesity parameter. The study's authors recommend using waist circumference only, as it has the greatest discriminatory power.

    When to Use
    Pearls/Pitfalls
    Why Use

    Primary care lifestyle screening for adults ≥25 years of age.

    • The Australian Type 2 Diabetes Risk (AUSDRISK) Assessment Tool identifies Australian adults at high risk for developing diabetes based on demographic, lifestyle, and simple anthropometric measures.
    • Targeted for use in primary care screening.
    • Enables identification of high risk individuals for focused lifestyle counseling and/or further investigation.
    • Developed specifically for the Australian population but has allowance for ethnicity and country of birth, so it may have validity in other countries with similar demographics.
    • Has been validated in a separate study examining an external cohort of Dutch patients.
    • May overestimate risk in patients <25 years.
    • Some versions of the AUSDRISK eliminate BMI, but the authors found that it resulted in a loss of discriminatory power.
    • Includes only non-invasive variables.
    • Provides objective score to help support recommendations of lifestyle modification to patients by primary care physicians.
    • In identified high-risk patients, enables further investigation and appropriate management of risk and lifestyle factors to prevent the development of diabetes.
    • In Australia, AUSDRISK score ≥12 is a prerequisite for physician access to Medicare items for health assessment of patients in the 40-49 age group.
    25-34
    0
    35-44
    +2
    45-54
    +4
    55-64
    +6
    ≥65
    +8
    Female
    0
    Male
    +3
    Southern European
    Asian
    Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander
    Pacific Islander
    Other
    No
    0
    Yes
    +3
    No
    0
    Yes
    +6
    No
    0
    Yes
    +2
    No
    0
    Yes
    +2
    No
    0
    Yes
    +2
    Waist circumference
    BMI
    Both
    in

    Result:

    Please fill out required fields.

    Next Steps
    Evidence
    Creator Insights
    Dr. Lei Chen

    From the Creator

    Why did you develop the AUSDRISK tool? Was there a particular clinical experience or patient encounter that inspired you to create this tool for clinicians?
    Predicting risk for future type 2 diabetes is essential to identifying people who are suitable for diabetes prevention programs.

    What pearls, pitfalls and/or tips do you have for users of the AUSDRISK tool? Are there cases when it has been applied, interpreted, or used inappropriately?
    Like any risk score, it provides a broad indication of average risk for people with the parameters as entered. It was developed using data from Australia (with a predominantly white Anglo-Celtic population), and so absolute risk levels may vary in other populations.

    In your practice, how does the AUSDRISK tool help you counsel patients?
    It is straightforward, and gives a reasonable assessment of diabetes risk.

    In the paper, you mention that several different models were tested in terms of the measure of obesity: BMI, waist circumference, or both. Which model do you prefer, and why?
    I would recommend using the prediction model with waist circumference, but without BMI. In circumstances where waist circumference is not available, the model with BMI can be used instead. In the paper, we have described the reason why we chose to use waist circumference in detail. The prediction model with waist circumference only works well both in terms of discrimination and calibration. The model with the inclusion of both waist and BMI did not improve the calibration significantly (Box 2).

    About the Creator

    Lei Chen, MBBS, MMed, MD, PhD, is an endocrinologist and researcher. Her Ph.D is in epidemiology and she has over 15 years of experience in epidemiological and clinical studies in obesity, diabetes and co-morbidities.

    To view Dr. Lei Chen's publications, visit PubMed

    Content Contributors
    • Stuart McMaster, MBChB
    About the Creator
    Dr. Lei Chen
    Content Contributors
    • Stuart McMaster, MBChB