Depression in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: a cross sectional study from rural tertiary care hospital of South Karnataka, India

Background: Depression is associated with a 60% increased risk of Type 2 Diabetes mellitus and diabetes doubles the odds of depression. This study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of depression and to assess the association between glycemic control and depression in diabetic patients.Methods: Total 130 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients were included in this cross-sectional hospital-based study. Study protocol included detailed clinical history, examination, administering of questionnaire-based scale and investigations. Fasting plasma glucose, post prandial plasma glucose, HbA1c, lipid profile, renal function test and electrolytes of these subjects were determined. Becks depression inventory (BDI) scale was used for diagnosis and grading the severity of depression among these patients.Results: Out of 130 diabetic patients, depression was present in 39.23% of the individuals, among which, 16.15% had mild depression, 10% had borderline depression, 7.69% had moderate depression, 3.07% had severe depression and 2.3% had extreme depression. Prevalence of depression in patients with glycated haemoglobin levels of ≤6.4 was found to be 29.16%, 6.5 to 7 was 33.76% and ≥7.1% was 62.07%.Conclusions: Depression was found to be more common in diabetic patients compared to general population. The prevalence of depression was more among patients with long duration of diabetes, female sex, Muslim religion, substance abuse, complications associated with diabetes and poor glycaemic control. More case control studies with larger sample size are needed to confirm this association