Prevalence of Complications of Diabetes and Risk Factors Among Patients with Diabetes in the Diabetes Clinic in Southeast of Iran

Objective: Academic health services play an important role in the prevention and control of diabetes mellitus (DM) in Iran. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of DM-related complications and the associated risk factors among patients with DM in a university-affiliated outpatient diabetes clinic of a referral hospital in Southeast of Iran, Zahedan. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from January to April 2019 in an academic diabetes clinic. A total of 334 patients with DM, whose characteristics (age, sex, family history of DM, and substance abuse), as well as laboratory and clinical information, were recorded in the baseline forms, were included. The relationship between variables were assessed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient at P-value< 0.05 and using SPSS version 20.0. Results: The mean age of the participants was 54.27 (±11.57) years. In these patients, DM type 2 was estimated at 99.1%, and the mean duration of the disease was 8.98 (±6.93) years. The findings showed that 77.2% of the patients had poor glycemic control. Also, 85.4% of the patients had fasting blood sugar (FBS) level >126 mg/dL. There was a significant relationship between insulin-dependent therapy and drug abuse (P-value <0.001). The prevalence of hyperlipidemia (68.9%), hypertension (50.6%), retinopathy (29.6%), nephropathy (11.7%), and neuropathy (12.3%) was also determined. Conclusion: The majority of the patients (77.2%) in this study had poor glycemic control, and 69.9% of them suffered from microvascular complications, macrovascular complications, or both. Therefore, frequent visits accompanied by patient education could help to better diabetes control