Prevalence of undiagnosed and uncontrolled diabetes mellitus among adults in South Chennai

Abstract

Background: Nearly 69.2 million people were living with diabetes as per 2015 WHO data. Prevalence of diabetes in Chennai is always on the rise and it nearly around 12%. The objectives of the study were to estimate the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes and also to study about the uncontrolled diabetes among known case of diabetes.Methods: A cross sectional descriptive record based study done on 1361 adult population attending medical camps in various locations of South Chennai. The data regarding capillary blood sugar (CBG), age, gender, place, type of treatment and duration of treatment were collected from the camp register. A RBS Glucometer value of >200 mg/dl was defined as having diabetic. Descriptive analysis and chi square test done to see the statistical significance between various parameters. T test was done to compare the mean RBS values between various variables.Results: Among the study population nearly 62.9% were females. The mean age of the study population was 49.8±13.3 years. Nearly 22% were known case of diabetics and 10.3% were newly diagnosed diabetics. The mean random blood sugar of the study population is 174.3±95.3 mg/dl. 65.4% of the known case of diabetics had uncontrolled sugar values of >200 mg/dl. The prevalence of diabetes in age group >50 years (43.9%) and <50 years (20.3%) [p=0.0001]. The mean blood sugar values among patients taking treatment in government (283.5 mg/dl) versus private (249.2 mg/dl) [p=0.0001, among known diabetics (262.5 mg/dl) versus new diabetics (296.6 mg/dl) [p=0.002].Conclusions: The prevalence of newly diagnosed diabetes was 10.3% and uncontrolled diabetes among known case is 65.4%. So more screening camps for early detection of diabetes and organizing health awareness programmes are needed in this population to reduce the disease burden.