Prevalence and Risk Factors for Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy Among Saudi Hospitalized Diabetic Patients: A Nested Case-Control Study

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence and the risk factors of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) in hospitalized adult Saudi diabetics. METHODS: This is a retrospective, nested case-control study conducted at King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All diabetic patients admitted to the hospital between the January 1, and December 31, 2018 were considered for inclusion in the study. Patients with DPN were identified and three controls per case were randomly selected from the remaining diabetic patients without peripheral neuropathy (PN). RESULTS: A total of 2,096 adult diabetic patients were identified during the study period. Of these, 73 patients (3.5%) were confirmed to be suffering from DPN and 219 were included as controls. When comparing diabetic with the control cases, DPN cases were significantly older (p=0.002), had a significantly higher proportion of type 2 diabetes (p=0.023), chronic kidney disease (p<0.0001), cerebral vascular stroke (p=0.027), hypertension (p=0.005), dyslipidemia (p=0.002), peripheral vascular disease (p<0.0001), osteoarthritis (p=0.034), diabetic ketoacidosis (p=0.003), foot ulcers (p=0.006), gangrene (p=0.001), lower limb ischemia (p=0.001), increased duration with diabetic disease (p=0.031), increased BMI (p=0.003), higher serum creatinine (p<0.001) and lower serum albumin levels (p=0.035). In the multivariate logistic regression, only older age {odds ratio (OR) 1.02, 95% CI 1.01–1.04, p=0.031}, chronic kidney disease (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.23–4.64, p=0.010) and peripheral vascular disease (OR 3.14, 95% CI 1.39–7.13, p=0.006) were independently associated with DPN. CONCLUSION: This study identified several risk factors that contributed to the development of DPN in Saudis. These must be considered in strategies and campaigns aimed at risk reduction of cardiovascular and chronic diseases, and consequently progression of DPN.