Anxiety prevalence in type 2 diabetes patients in Taif Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a major health problem worldwide, and anxiety is a serious psychiatric problem that can lead to serious consequences such as substance abuse. The prevalence of anxiety has been found to be high in T2D patients in several studies; data in Saudi Arabia are scarce; however, our primary goal was to identify the prevalence of anxiety among T2D patients and to examine the impact of anxiety on glycemic control, measured cardiovascular markers, and T2D-related complications. Methods: This cross-sectional, interview-based study was conducted from October 2015 to July 2016 in Taif City, Saudi Arabia. Researchers took anthropometric measures, and the laboratory results were taken from the patients' electronic files using medical record numbers. For anxiety screening, we used the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale. Results: The prevalence of anxiety was 45.45%, and it was not significantly associated with socioeconomic factors. Neither hemoglobin A1c level nor lipid profile levels were affected by anxiety. After adjusting for multiple variables, retinopathy and neuropathy were negatively correlated with GAD-7 score. Conclusion: Anxiety was highly prevalent among the screened T2D patients. Although the anxiety diagnosis did not correlate with worse glycemic control or cardiovascular markers, it was negatively associated with T2D-related microvascular complications.