A study to assess utility of diabetes anxiety depression scale in diabetic patients and to correlate its scores with glycaemic control

Abstract

Background: According to the International Diabetes Federation “diabetes is one of the largest global health emergencies of the 21st century”. Depression and anxiety have been identified as frequent co-morbid condition in Type 2 diabetes, which is itself associated with worse outcomes including increased mortality. People with diabetes are 2 to 3 times more likely to have depression than people without diabetes. Only 25% to 50% of people with diabetes who have depression get diagnosed and treated. The diabetes anxiety depression scale (DADS) is a potentially useful instrument in screening for anxious depression in people with type 2 diabetes in clinical practice. Methods: The study was a prospective observational study done on 100 Diabetic patients in a tertiary care hospital in Bangalore during the period of 2 months from November 2022 to December 2022. Results: Among the subjects studied,57% were Male and 43% were female. The maximum number of subjects i.e., 31% were in the age group of 51-60 years. Then mean duration of Type 2 DM in the study subjects was 12.34 years. 53% were found to have poor glycaemic control which is a HbA1C value of more than equal to 8%. 31% of them scored 18-39. Score of 18-39 was suggestive of major anxious depression. Conclusions: Anxious depression was prevalent across all categories of glycemic variability. There was no statistically significant difference among glycemic variability across the anxious depression spectrum. DADS score had a positive correlation with increasing age. Male diabetic patients had more anxious depression than female patients. Female diabetic patients had poorer diabetic control over prolonged periods of time. The present study findings have potential clinical implications but also have certain limitations in terms of sample size.