Objective:

To develop and validate an easy-to-use risk score to detect prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes in Mexican population.

Materials and methods:

Using information from the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán’s cohort study of 10 234 adults, risk factors were identified and included in multiple logistic regression models stratified by sex. The beta coefficients of the final model were multiplied by 10, thus obtaining the weights of each variable in the score.

Results:

The proposed score correctly classifies 55.4% of women with undiagnosed diabetes and 57.2% of women with prediabetes or diabetes. While for men it correctly classifies them at 68.6% and 69.9%, respectively.

Conclusions:

We present the design and validation of a risk score stratified by sex, to determine if an adult could have prediabetes or diabetes, in which case laboratory studies should be performed to confirm or not the diagnosis.