Prevalence of diabetes mellitus among patients visiting medical outpatient department of Ayder referral hospital , Mekelle , Ethiopia : A three years pooled data

Introduction: The number of people suffering from DM is increasing due to population growth, aging, urbanization, low physical activity and socioeconomic growth. Quantifying the prevalence of DM and the number of people affected by diabetes, now and in the future, is crucial for planning prevention strategies and allocation of resources. Objective: the purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in Ayder referral hospital. Method: Hospital based retrospective record review was employed on 20,939 outpatients. Data was collected from the medical OPD log book using a structured questionnaire. The collected raw data was entered in to excel sheet, cleaned and then exported to SPSS version 19 and analyzed using appropriate statistical tools. Result: The study revealed that 263 out of the total 20,939 outpatients were found to have diabetes mellitus, indicating an overall prevalence of 1.3%. Among the total 263 diabetes mellitus patients, 113 (43%) were males and 150 (57%) were females. Most of the patients, 216/263 (82%), had type 2 diabetes mellitus while 47/263 (18%) of them suffered from type 1 diabetes. 158/263 (60%) had BMI of 25 and above and 36/263 (14%) had family history of diabetes mellitus. Regarding their residence; great majority, 213 (81%) were urban dwellers as compared to 50(19%) from the rural areas. Conclusion: Though the 1.3% prevalence of diabetes mellitus observed in this study is lower than the national estimate, still it indicates a considerable burden in the locality.