Epidemiology of Impaired Renal Function in the Bamenda Health District, North West Region of Cameroon

Abstract

Impaired renal function (IRF) is a worldwide problem with adverse outcome of kidney failure, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. Consequently research on assessing the burden of this disease in a developing Country like Cameroon where sustainability of end-stage management cannot be guaranteed, is crucial for the adoption of better prevention strategies. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiology of Impaired Renal Function, among adults in Bamenda health district by the end of 2015. It was a cross sectional study that lasted from March 2015 to December 2015 at the Bamenda Health District. Blood samples were collected from 512 participants through a stratified convenience sampling technique. IRF was defined as Egfr ≤ 60 ml/min/1.73m 2 . Data was analysed using Epi Info version 3.5.1 and Microsoft Excel 2010. Out of the 512 participants, there were 305 (59.6%) females and 207 (40%) males of which 294 (57.4%) were from the rural communities and 218 (42.6%) from the urban communities. The mean age of the participants was 52 years (SD=15.43). It was observed that the prevalence of new cases of the various diseases was very high; hypertension was 44.1%, IRF was 7.40% and Diabetes was 6.4%. This result could be correlated with other studies in Africa. There was also a prevalence of 0.8% of participants who were already at stage 5 but who weren't aware of their status. Prevalence of reduced eGFR was high in the entire population and predominatly dominated by the rural population while awareness was low. Factors associated to IRF were obesity (AOR=2.39; 95%CI 1.13-5.06); pre-diabetes (AOR=2.53; 95%CI 1.03-6.21) and age (AOR=1.04; 95%CI 1.01-1.07). IRF is an increasing burden in Cameroon. More research needs to be done so as to identify some of the risk factors of every community for better interventions.