PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Anne Jølle AU - Kristian Midthjell AU - Jostein Holmen AU - Jaakko Tuomilehto AU - Sven M Carlsen AU - Jonathan Shaw AU - Bjørn O Åsvold TI - Impact of sex and age on the performance of FINDRISC: the HUNT Study in Norway AID - 10.1136/bmjdrc-2016-000217 DP - 2016 Jun 01 TA - BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care PG - e000217 VI - 4 IP - 1 4099 - http://drc.bmj.com/content/4/1/e000217.short 4100 - http://drc.bmj.com/content/4/1/e000217.full SO - BMJ Open Diab Res Care2016 Jun 01; 4 AB - Objective The Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) is recommended as a screening tool for diabetes risk. However, there is a lack of well-powered studies examining the performance of FINDRISC by sex and age. We aim to estimate, by sex and age, the prevalence of elevated FINDRISC and positive predictive value (PPV) of FINDRISC for identifying impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) in a general Norwegian population.Research design and methods We estimated the prevalence of elevated FINDRISC (≥15) among 47 694 adults in the third survey of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT3, 2006–08). Among 2559 participants who participated in oral glucose tolerance testing, we estimated the PPV of elevated FINDRISC for identifying unknown prevalent diabetes and other forms of IGM.Results The prevalence of elevated FINDRISC was 12.1% in women, 9.6% in men, and increased from 1.5% at age 20–39 to 25.1% at age 70–79 years. The PPVs of elevated FINDRISC were 9.8% for diabetes, 16.9% for impaired glucose tolerance, 8.2% for impaired fasting glucose, and 34.9% for any form of IGM. The PPV for IGM was lower in women (31.2%) than in men (40.4%), and increased from 19.1% at age 20–39 to 55.5% at age ≥80 years.Conclusions FINDRISC identified more women than men as high-risk individuals for diabetes. FINDRISC had a high PPV for detecting prevalent IGM, and the PPV was higher in men than in women and in the older individuals. Our data indicate that the impact of sex and age on diabetes risk is not fully captured by FINDRISC, and that refinements to it might improve diabetes prediction.