Increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus in a developing country and its related factors

BACKGROUND: All countries, irrespective of their developmental stage, face an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases including diabetes mellitus. There is substantial evidence of the existence of the gap in the level of diabetes mellitus and its complications prevention and control measures in developing countries. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in urban and rural dwellers in a low-income country from both younger and older population and to identify factors related. METHODS: This is a community based comparative cross-sectional study conducted in a low-income country, Ethiopia. The sample size was determined by EPI-Info for two populations; the WHO’s STEP-wise approach for non-communicable diseases surveillance in developing countries was employed for sampling, study variable selection and data collection procedures. Fasting blood glucose levels were measured by finger pricking after overnight fasting. Data entry was done by EPI-data computer program version 3.1 and then processed by SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression tests were used to assess the associations between diabetes status of individuals and its potential predictor variables. P-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant level. RESULT: The study was conducted on 1405 individuals with age range of 18–97 years old. The mean fasting blood glucose level for study participants was 91.16mg/dl; while it was 94.73mg/dl for urban and 87.71mg/dl for rural dwellers. The prevalence of diabetes mellitus was 3.3%; while it was 2.0% for rural and (4.6%) for urban dwellers. Both the mean blood glucose level and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus were significantly higher for urban residents than rural. More than three-fourths of diabetic cases were newly diagnosed by this study. Urban dwellers, centrally obese, overweight, and hypertensive individuals have higher odds of getting diabetes mellitus. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: High prevalence of diabetes mellitus involving both old and young population was documented. Most diabetic cases were suddenly diagnosed during this survey. The problem is noticeably alarming, attention should be given to the control and prevention of diabetes mellitus and related complications.