OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to assess the gap between the guidelines recommendations of statins prescribing and clinical practice among diabetic outpatients regarding the age and gender of patients, to evaluate if this preventive medication is being satisfactorily prescribed or not.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted. Patients <40 or >75 years old, human immunodeficiency virus pregnant, liver cirrhosis, or type 1 diabetes were excepted. Demographics, laboratory, and prevalence of statins prescribing data was collected. This investigation was based on The 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) cholesterol recommendations. IBM-SPSS was used for data analysis.

RESULTS: A total group includes 576 outpatients, with mean age (58.3 ± 8.9) years. The cases were 50.5% females. Statins users were 81.1% patients with mean age (58.8 ± 8.8) years. Statin non-users were 18.9% subjects with mean age (56.2 ± 9) years. About 78.9% of males and 83.2% of females were given statins. Prescribed statins were 79.2% simvastatin, 11.6% atorvastatin, 5.8% lovastatin, 2.1% rosuvastatin, and 1.3% pravastatin. Medications adherence of statins users and non-users was 56.5%, and 41.3%, (P-value: 0.004). The adherence to medications plan of female and male was 55.7% and 51.6% respectively, (P-value 0.004). Kendall's and Spearman correlation tests indicated a negative association among statins usage and body mass index (BMI), history of diabetes incidence, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c%), diabetic family history and uncontrolled glycemia (HbA1c >7%) (All P-value: 0.001). Linear and Multinomial Logistic Regression confirmed that BMI, history of diabetes incidence, HbA1c%, diabetic family history and uncontrolled glycemia as a negative predictor for the prescribing of statins among diabetic patients (All P-value <0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Diabetic outpatients who are at high threat for cardiovascular events, Statins prescribing is significantly less than perfect position both in females and males. Nearly one-fifth of the diabetic patients are not prescribed statins despite therapeutic needs.