With the increasing incidence of diabetic retinopathy and its improved detection, there is increased demand for diabetic retinopathy treatment services.

Prognostic prediction models have been used to optimise services but these were intended for early detection of sight-threatening retinopathy and are mostly used in diabetic retinopathy screening services.

We wanted to look into the predictive ability and applicability of the existing models for the higher-risk patients referred into hospitals.

We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, COCHRANE CENTRAL, conference abstracts and reference lists of included publications for studies of any design using search terms related to diabetes, diabetic retinopathy and prognostic models.