Abstract

The diabetic complications have become a world health problem. They prevail throughout the world but their percentages differ in different areas due to cultural influences. Therefore, we have determined prevalence of complications of diabetes in the rural population of district Jhang (Pakistan). For this purpose, a performa was developed and information was collected from two hundred and ten (210) diabetic patients about their age, sex, height, socioeconomic status, educational status, type of diabetes, duration of diabetes, age at diagnosis, blood pressure and blood sugar levels ( fasting and random) and the symptoms of diabetes. Mainly the complications were compared with different variables or risk factors like diet, type of diabetes, obesity, sugar levels and uncontrolled diet. Retinopathy, carbuncles, pregnancy and hypertension complications in both sexes had non-significant (P>0.05) relationship with controlled diet but significant (P<0.05) with uncontrolled diet. Nephropathy and neuropathy showed significant relationship with controlled diet and non-significant with uncontrolled diet. Retinopathy, neuropathy and gangrene in both sexes were highly significantly (P<0.001) related with both types of diabetes. Pregnancy complications were also highly significantly related with obesity and random sugar levels and all other complications were non-significantly different from obesity and random as well as fasting sugar levels. Logistic regression model on the whole data showed that age, diet, diagnosis age and random sugar levels were significantly related with the prevalence of diabetic complications. While weight, blood pressure and fasting sugar levels had no relationship with the complications.