Evidence for validity of a national physician and patient-reported, cross-sectional survey in China and UK: the Disease Specific Programme

ObjectiveDiabetes represents a significant challenge for Chinese healthcare providers. Healthcare decision-making is generally based on many data sources, including randomised controlled and real-world studies; however, good-quality data from Chinese diabetes patients are scarce. We performed an initial validation to assess the representativeness of one source of real-world data—the Diabetes Adelphi Disease Specific Programme (DSP) in China.SettingChina, UK.ParticipantsThe Chinese DSP included 2060 patients with previously diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) sampled by 200 physicians. The reference Chinese population comprised 238 639 patients with previously diagnosed T2DM. The UK DSP contained 1481 patients with T2DM sampled by 125 physicians; the reference UK population comprised 289 patients with diabetes.Primary and secondary outcomesThe primary outcome was comparison of unweighted China DSP and reference data for sex, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure (BP), patients achieving glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c)