Association between reduced quality of life and depression in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a cohort study in a Mexican population

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that requires attention and commitment on the part of patients; improving the quality of life of these patients reduces health costs, morbidity, and mortality. We focused on investigating the factors related with the quality of life and depression symptomatology in patients with type 2 diabetes. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: A total of 173 Mexican patients with type 2 diabetes were recruited. An interview face-to-face, a sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire, the Short Form 36 (SF-36), and the Clinical Epidemiological Studies of Depression were applied. The biochemical parameters measured were blood glucose, cholesterol, triacylglycerol levels, and glycated hemoglobin. RESULTS: In all SF-36 subscales, female patients had lower scores in comparison with male patients; individuals ≥65 years of age showed less physical function. We observed that married patients presented a better quality of life than people who were widowed or divorced (P<0.05). Those with high rates of lipids showed decreased scores all the subscales of SF-36. Finally, we observed that depression was the major factor that decreased quality of life in patients with diabetes. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that untreated and unrecognized depression can decrease the quality of life in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2. Therefore, health care professionals need to consider these findings when treating patients with diabetes. Due to the limited number of patients included in the present study, more studies are needed, studying larger samples in order to provide conclusive results.