Increasing Trends of Diabetes Mellitus and Body Weight: A Ten Year Observation at Gondar University Teaching Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is becoming one of the major causes of premature adult mortality in developing countries. However, there is a very little documentation of the morbidity trend in such countries. OBJECTIVE: To assess the ten-year trend of diabetes mellitus at Gondar University Teaching Referral Hospital, northwest Ethiopia. METHODS: A hospital-based retrospective record review was done at the main referral hospital in northwest Ethiopia. Data were obtained from medical records of all registered diabetic patients in the Diabetic Follow up Clinic between 2000 and 2009. An Extended Mantel-Haenzel chi-square test for the linear trend was used to examine the trend over time. RESULT: Out of the total 354,524 patients who visited the Outpatient Department of the hospital during the study period, 1553 (4.4/1000) were diabetes patients, of which 50.1% was type 1 and 49.9% type 2 diabetes mellitus. The average increase in the proportion of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes mellitus cases between 2000 and 2009 was 125%. The mean (±SD) age for Type 1 diabetes mellitus was 29.1 (±12), and 53.5 (±12) for Type 2 diabetes. Overall 42.5% of the diabetes mellitus patients were female and 31.7% were rural residents. The mean body mass index for both type of diabetes mellitus increased from 15.9 to 18.3 kg for type 1 and from 23.8 to 24.6 for type 2 between 2000 and 2009, respectively. CONCLUSION: The number of diabetes mellitus cases seen at Gondar Referral Hospital is rising steadily. A comprehensive diabetes prevention, treatment, and care program is needed to improve the quality of life of the increasing diabetes mellitus cases in Ethiopia.