Diabetes Risk Perception and Intention to Adopt Healthy Lifest yles Among Primary Care Patients

OBJECTIVE

To examine perceived risk of developing diabetes in primary care patients.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

We recruited 150 nondiabetic primary care patients. We made standard clinical measurements, collected fasting blood samples, and used the validated Risk Perception Survey for Developing Diabetes questionnaire.

RESULTS

Patients with high perceived risk were more likely than those with low perceived risk to have a family history of diabetes (68 vs. 18%; P < 0.0001) and to have metabolic syndrome (53 vs. 35%; P = 0.04). However, patients with high perceived risk were not more likely to have intentions to adopt healthier lifestyle in the coming year (high 26.0% vs. low 29.2%; P = 0.69).

CONCLUSIONS

Primary care patients with higher perceived risk of diabetes were at higher actual risk but did not express greater intention to adopt healthier lifestyles. Aspects of health behavior theory other than perceived risk need to be explored to help target efforts in the primary prevention of diabetes.Many clinical trials have shown that healthier lifestyles leading to modest weight loss can prevent diabetes in populations at risk (1,2), but changing behavior in real-life patients remains a challenge. Risk perception is a major component of most health behavior theories (3). Perceived risk to develop diabetes can be measured using a validated questionnaire such as the Risk Perception Survey for Developing Diabetes (RPS-DD) (4). There are no reports of diabetes risk perception estimated by the RPS-DD in primary care settings. We tested the hypotheses that primary care patients who perceive themselves at higher risk are 1) actually at higher risk for future diabetes and 2) more likely to intend to adopt healthier lifestyle behaviors.