The awareness to metabolic syndrome among hospital health providers.

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) was shown to be related to a variety of diseases. High level of vigilance for the diagnosis of MetS is expected among health providers. We evaluated the level of awareness to MetS among physician and nurses working in a central hospital.

METHODS AND RESULTS: A specially designed anonymous questionnaire was used, including both open and multiple choice questions set to evaluate the participant's awareness to MetS. The study included 126 participants, 71% physicians and 29% nurses. Mean age was 36.2±3.8 years. Among physicians, 68.5% were residents and 45.5% were internists. 98% of the participants stated that they were familiar with the term MetS and that they treat MetS patients regularly. Most participants knew the correct number of criteria included in MetS definition and the number of criteria needed for MetS diagnosis (84% and 90%, respectively). However, only 12% were able to discriminate correctly all MetS cases from non-MetS ones. Physicians performed better than nurses (15.6% and 3.1%, respectively, P=0.003). Neither, field of practice nor seniority was found to have a significant influence on the results. The frequency of recommendation for MetS risk factor modulation in the discharge files was also analyzed. Such recommendations were scarcely given, with cardiology department being the exception (80% of discharge files from cardiology department compared with less than 20% in other departments).

CONCLUSION: Though hospital workers showed high level of awareness to the existence of MetS, they failed to differentiate correctly MetS cases from non-MetS ones.