Patterns, control and complications of diabetes from a hospital based registry established in a low income country

BACKGROUND: Diabetes registry enables practitioners to measure the characteristics and patterns of diabetes across their patient population. They also provide insight into practice patterns which can be very effective in improving care and preventing complications. The aim of this study was to assess the patterns, control levels and complications at the baseline of the patients attending clinic at the large tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan with the help of the registry. This can be used as a reference to monitor the control and also for a comparison between peer groups. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study with the data obtained from diabetes registry collected with the help of pre-designed questionnaire. HbA1c was used as a central diabetes measure and other related factors and complications were assessed with it. RESULTS: Only 16.6% of the participants had optimal HbA1c ≤ 7.0%. 52.9% of the patients were classified as having poor control defined by HbA1c of >8%. Three fourth of the study population were obese according to Asian specific BMI cutoffs and majority had type 2 diabetes with duration of diabetes ranging from less than one to about 35 years, mean(SD) duration being 7.6 years (7.1). Overall only 4% of the patients were on combine target of HbA1c, LDL and BP. Results of multivariable logistic regression showed that the odds of having optimal glycemic control increased by 3% with every one year increase in age. In addition, having longer duration of diabetes was associated with 56% lower odds of having good glycemic control. Moreover, having higher triglyceride levels was associated with 1% lower odds of having good glycemic control. CONCLUSION: This highlights the large burden of sub optimally controlled people with diabetes in Pakistani population, a low income country with huge diabetes prevalence and ineffective primary health care system creating enormous health and economic burden. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12902-017-0179-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.