Background: The cost effective provision of quality care for chronic diseases is a major challenge for health care systems. We describe a project to improve the care of patients with the highly prevalent disorders of diabetes and hypertension, conducted in one of the major cities of the United Arab Emirates.
Settings And Methods: The project, using the principles of quality assurance cycles, was conducted in 4 stages.
Background: Over the last 30 years the citizens of the United Arab Emirates have experienced major changes in life-style secondary to increased affluence. Currently, 1 in 5 adults have diabetes mellitus, but the associations (clustering) among risk factors, as well as the relevance of the concept of the metabolic syndrome, in this population is unknown.
Aim: To investigate the prevalence and associations among cardiovascular risk factors in this population, and explore to what extent associations can be explained by the metabolic syndrome according to ATP-III criteria.