51-OR: Anxiety and Changes in Health Care Access and Health Behaviors during COVID-in Southwest Tribal Community Patients with Prediabetes and Diabetes

Abstract

Objective: The impact of COVID-has been devastating to many, but particularly to rural populations of American Indians from Zuni Pueblo who suffer multiple vulnerabilities which places them at greater risk for infection and death. Very little is known about the change in health behaviors owing to the COVID pandemic among a chronically ill (diabetes) rural Zuni population. We evaluated the anxiety and stress about COVID-contributing to poorer mental health outcomes in Zuni Indians with PreDM and T2DM. Methods: We conducted a survey among individuals with hyperglycemia in Zuni Indians. There were 300 participants who responded to the survey, of which 193 participants also had baseline clinical health data. Results: Those with T2DM experienced higher pandemic-related anxiety than those with pre-DM (+3.9 vs. -0.6, p=0.0616, on a scale -30 to +30) . Those with T2DM were more likely to report decreased physical activity (54% vs. 44%) , decreased frequency in lab testing (21% vs. 10%) , and increased virtual contact with providers (61% vs. 48%) during the pandemic. We conducted regression analyses to describe correlations of anxiety and weight change with the changes in health behaviors. We found that participants with improved diet and exercise during the pandemic were less likely to experience weight gain (OR= 0.78, p=0.0017 and OR=0.75, p=0.0094, respectively) . We also found that those who reported worsening health care during the pandemic experienced increased anxiety (+4.9, p=0.0049) . Conclusion: Our study provides important insights into (unintended) consequential effect of COVID crisis in rural Zuni which will contribute to a better understanding of how to preserve mental health and maintain health behaviors in patients with diabetes during the pandemics. Disclosure J.Reno: None. Y.Zhu: None. V.Shah: n/a. Funding National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (P20GM103451)