Young Diabetologists Forum HbA1c Clinical Utility Survey

The Young Diabetologists research arm is interested in how well the change to the new HbA1c units has gone. Anecdotal and published evidence suggests that patients understanding of glycated haemaglobin is poor despite intensive education.

A recent study has shown that nearly 60% of patients, the majority with type 2 diabetes, were unfamiliar with the term 'HbA1c' despite the fact that this is something that doctors discuss on a frequent basis. Following the switch to the new units (mmol/mol from %) the concern was that patients and clinicians would find the higher numerical values more difficult to interpret as the values track much higher than the values reported as a percentage.

The YDF would be grateful if you could complete this short survey which looks at the practical and clinical utility of the HbA1c blood test from the perspective of both patients and healthcare professionals