[Family doctor clinical aptitude confronting gestational diabetes patients].

BACKGROUND

Gestational diabetes mellitus complicates 7% of all pregnancies. Recognizing and treating this entity result in a diminished number of materno-fetal complications; this study explores the family physician clinical aptitude to identify risk factors, to diagnose and treat gestational diabetes.

OBJECTIVE

Identify clinical aptitude level of family physician to the treatment of diabetes gestational patients.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

Transversal study to describe the level of clinical aptitude in 85 family physicians working in Guadalajara. Were studied: speciality, genre, work condition, working years, working hours, and place of work. The evaluation instrument was designed to this specific purpose and validated by an expert group; were evaluated four indicators: 1) identification of risk factors, 2) diagnosis, 3) use of therapeutic resources and 4) use of paraclinic resources. Confidence coefficient to the assessment instrument was (21 formula from Kuder-Richardson) 0.92 in global evaluation.

RESULTS

The global clinical aptitude in the four family medicine units studied was less than 21 points in 41% of physician population and very low (22 a 40 points) in 38% of the evaluated physicians.

CONCLUSIONS

The clinical aptitude from family physician in gestational diabetes is low, this situation represents an urgent need to design a system to provide to these groups of health providers specialized continuous education to enhance the attention quality to this group of patients in family medicine units.