Is the Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire a good screening tool for detection of peripheral arterial disease in diabetic patients?

Aims: To determine whether the Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire (ECQ) can be used as a screening tool for detecting peripheral arterial disease in patients with diabetes mellitus. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 200 patients with diabetes over 18 years of age who attended a primary care clinic at a teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using the ECQ for the presence of intermittent claudication. Blood pressure and peripheral neuropathy were assessed. Ankle brachial pressure index (ABPI) was measured and used as a gold standard for the diagnosis of eripheral arterial disease (PAD), which was defined as an ABPI of < 0.9 on either leg. Results: The overall prevalence of PAD was found to be 16% among patients with diabetes based on ABPI. Among these 32 patients with PAD, eight (25%) had symptoms of intermittent claudication based on the ECQ. The ECQ was found to have a low sensitivity (25%) but a high specificity (99.4%), with a positive predictive value of 88.9% and a negative predictive value of 88% for diagnosing PAD in patients with diabetes. Conclusions: The ECQ is not a good screening tool for detection of PAD among patients with diabetes due to its low sensitivity.