[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.