Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Diabetes Mellitus appears to be globally pandemic and is drawing attention as a major public health concern. Chronic complications of this disease can lead to poor quality of life with significant financial burden to family and country as well. The current study aims to assess prevalence of such complications and its awareness in type 2 diabetes population.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted during one year period in Endocrinology Outpatient Department of Koshi Hospital, Biratnagar, Nepal from 1^st January 2021 to 31^st December 2021. Consecutive sampling was applied and face to face interview was conducted to collect the information after informed verbal consent. Various factors related to awareness level were noted and compared.

Results: Out of 495 participants, 294 (59.4%) were male and 201 (40.6%) were female. The mean age of the participants was 52.07 ± 11.35 years. Of total patients 49.7 percent had diabetes related complications. Out of them 30.9 percent had one, 13.9 percent had two, 4.2 percent had three and 0.6 percent had four complications pertaining to their primary condition i.e. Diabetes Mellitus. Peripheral neuropathy was high (27.5%) followed by Diabetic retinopathy (17.6%), Diabetic Kidney Disease (16.2 % ), Ischemic Heart Disease and/or Heart failure (4.8%), sexual problems (3.8 %) and Cerebrovascular disease (3.4%). Regarding awareness, only 45.5 percent had good awareness on microvascular and macrovascular complicatons related to Diabetes. Among the 49.7 percent patients who had complications, only 48.3 percent patients with retinopathy were aware that their retinopathy was secondary to Diabetes Mellitus. Similarly it was 75 percent awareness in case of cardiovascular complications, 52.9 percent with Cerebrovascular disease, 43.8 percent with Diabetic Kidney Disease, 43.4 percent with neuropathy and 31.6 percent with sexual problems. Participants of older age, male gender, longer duration of disease, higher literacy status and having other diabetic patient in family were more aware about the complications of type 2 diabetes than their counterparts.

Conclsion: This study revealed that there is lack of awareness in diabetic population on micro and macrovascular complications even them having considerable prevalence of such complications. The primary care physicians, diabetes educators and public health program implementers all have an important role in educating diabetics on chronic complications and measures to prevent them so that patients’ morbidity and financial burden to family and country can be reduced or prevented.