Comparative Study of FINDRISC and IDRS in Predicting Prediabetes and Diabetes Mellitus in a Young Adult Yemeni Population

Background Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a leading cause of death worldwide. To address the rising of DM, it might be more effective to create and validate a targeted risk scoring system for specific populations. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the diagnostic accuracy of the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) and the Indian Diabetes Risk Score (IDRS) in assessing the risk of developing T2DM and to identify the factors associated with T2DM risk among healthy medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, Taiz University, Yemen. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 students at Taiz University. The IDRS and FINDRISC questionnaires were used to assess the diabetes risk score for developing T2DM within 10 years. Fasting blood sugar was measured. Descriptive statistics and the chi-square test were used, with P  < 0.05 regarded as statistically significant. The diagnostic accuracy of FINDRISC and IDRS was compared using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). Sensitivity, specificity, Youden index, likelihood ratio, positive and negative predictive values were calculated for both tools. Results Out of 200 participants, 10.5% and 1.5% were diagnosed with prediabetes and T2DM, respectively, where females had a higher prevalence than males for both outcomes ( P  < 0.001). The AUC-ROC for both scores in identifying participants with diabetes differed (P < 0.001); for FINDRISC, it was larger (0.782; 95% CI: 0.68–0.88; P  < 0.001) compared to that of IDRS (0.671; 95% CI: 0.56–0.78). For FINDRISC at 9 as the best cutoff (sensitivity = 67.0%, specificity = 80.1%, and Youden index = 0.44); whereas for IDRS at 45 as the best cutoff (sensitivity = 46.0%, specificity = 80.0% and Youden index = 0.25). Bland-Altman plot suggested fair agreement between both scores in assessing diabetes risk. Conclusion FINDRISC serves as a simple and effective screening tool to detect subjects at high risk for prediabetes and T2DM among young adults in Yemen. Diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility of FINDRISC is better than that of IDRS.