Depression and its association with glycemic control in Nepalese adults with diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Introduction: Depression is reported more common among people with diabetes mellitus which if not addressed, may lead to poor diabetes outcomes. The purpose of the study was to explore depression among people with diabetes mellitus attending endocrinology outpatient department of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital and to find its association with glycemic control.

Methods: Patients with diabetes mellitus (n=158) attending endocrinology OPD of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital were chosen by simple random sampling technique. A self- designed semi structured proforma was devised to obtain the socio- demographic characteristics of the study population. 'General health questionnaire -12' was applied and those with a score of three or more considered as achieving 'psychiatric caseness and among them depression was diagnosed with ICD-10 DCR criteria and HAM-D scale was used to verify it objectively.

Results: Among the patients, 122(77.2%) belonged to type 2 diabetes and 36 (22.8%) belonged to type 1 diabetes. Estimate of depression was found to be 29.11% (n=46) which was almost similar in both types of diabetes. The duration of diabetes were less than 5 years in 38% of patients. Level of depression showed significant associationand a positive correlation with glycemic control.

Conclusion: This study concluded that depression is common in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients and calls the need for screening of depression for comprehensive diabetes management.