People with diabetes are more likely to be admitted to hospital and have a longer stay compared to people with glucose levels in the normal range, a Victorian study has confirmed.

The retrospective study included 1895 people participating in the Geelong Osteoporosis Study, 152 of whom had a diagnosis of diabetes.

Results showed that people with diabetes were two times as likely to be hospitalised compared to people with blood glucose within normal levels.

And 50.6% of people with diabetes were admitted to hospital more than once over the study follow-up period of 7.4 years compared with 31% and 22% of those with impaired fasting glucose and normal glucose respectively.

For men with diabetes the most common reason for admission was angina followed by type 2 diabetes. For women, the most common documented reason for admission was type 2 diabetes followed by heart failure.

The researchers from the Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, said their findings confirmed existing evidence showing that people with diabetes had a higher incidence, rate and length of hospital stay.

“Our findings [also] show that the incidence of hospital admission multiplies as IFG progresses to diabetes, which if used effectively in public health campaigns could help reduce progression in the population,” the study authors wrote in their paper published in BMJ Open.

“We recommend screening for IFG in the population combined with targeted interventions to prevent diabetes in high-risk individuals,” they added.

They noted that their study was limited by the fact that they did not differentiate between the types of diabetes at baseline.