Deep venous thrombosis among diabetic patients in King Abdulaziz University (KAU) Hospital, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients worldwide and, simultaneously, the most preventable. Studies revealed several risk factors of deep venous thrombosis in hospitalized patients. OBJECTIVE: to identify frequency and factors associated with occurrence of deep venous thrombosis among diabetic patients referred to King Abdulaziz University (KAU) Hospital, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This cross-sectional hospital-based study was conducted from June to December, 2016. All diabetic patients referred to the hospital departments and who were suspected to have deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and subjected to Doppler examination were included in the study. A questionnaire was designed to obtain data about deep venous thrombosis frequency among participants and factors associated with the development of deep venous thrombosis among them. Data was collected through face to face interviews with patients included in the study. We used SPSS version 16 for data analysis through descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. RESULTS: DVT was detected in 14.7 % of the examined patients. There were significant and positive associations between age and DVT (X(2)=10.13, p=0.03) and between ischemic heart disease and DVT (X(2)=1.628, p=0.043) with the development of deep venous thrombosis among the studied patients. On the other hand, gender, other comorbidities, history of previous DVT, being bed ridden and using orthopedic casting were not significantly associated with the occurrence of deep venous thrombosis among the participants. CONCLUSION: DVT development rate among the participants was 14.7 %. Aging was significantly associated with DVT occurrence. Most of the studied factors and comorbidities had no significant role in DVT development among participants and only ischemic heart disease was significantly associated with DVT development.