How the COVID-19 outbreak affected patients with diabetes mellitus?

Abstract

Background Global COVID-19 outbreak has been such a stressful experience for most of the people. Using a web-based cross-sectional study, we aimed to evaluate the acute stress response, depression, and anxiety in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to examine the effect of these psychiatric problems on diet habits and glycemic controls of patients. Methods This web-based survey of COVID-19 was sent to the patients through the Whatsapp platform. All participants reported their demographic data, diabetes-related information, changes in self-monitoring blood glucose measurements, physical parameters, and eating habits after COVID-19, then completed Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Impact of Event Scale, Revised (IES-R) questionnaires which assessed acute stress sypmtoms, anxiety, and depression. Results Three hundred and four patients with DM [(141 type 1 DM (T1D) and 163 type 2 (T2D)] were included in the study. In our study, female gender, higher BMI and weight, decreased in financial income after outbreak, presence of diabetic complications and comorbid diseases (i.e., retinopathy, neuropathy, diabetic foot, hypertension, dyslipidemia), worsened glycemic levels, increased carbohydrate consumption, and snacking were associated with higher anxiety and depression scores. Depression was higher in patients with T2D and duration of illness was correlated with acute stress level. Conclusions It is important to be aware of the possibility of acute stress, depression, and anxiety after pandemic in patients with DM whose glycemic control is impaired. Psychological problems should not be ignored beyond physical inactivity and worsening eating habits.

Impact of the first announced state of emergency owing to coronavirus disease 2019 on stress and blood pressure levels among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Japan

“…Sisman et al . 46 reported that worsening glycemic control and an increase in dietary intake, especially carbohydrate consumption, during the COVID‐19 pandemic were related to higher anxiety and depression scores. Stress led to not only elevated BP, but also poor glycemic control 47 , 48 , and was related to various comorbidities 49 .…”

How did lockdown and social distancing policies change the eating habits of diabetic patients during the COVID-19 pandemic? A systematic review

“…In seven studies, drinking alcohol during the lockdown and social distancing was investigated. No increase was reported in alcohol consumption in these studies, while a reduction was reported in five studies (Olickal et al, 2020;Kishimoto et al, 2021;Sisman et al, 2021;Vetrani et al, 2021;Maruo et al, 2022), and the trend was the same in the other two studies as before the lockdown (Hansel et al, 2021;Tanaka et al, 2021). Kishimoto et al (2021) reported that 20.83% of the patients drank fewer alcoholic beverages associated with better glycemic control in them.…”

“…A summary of the 22 studies eligible for review is presented in Table 1. Of the 22 studies, thirteen (59%) were cross-sectional (Ghosh et al, 2020;Khader et al, 2020;Munekawa et al, 2020;Olickal et al, 2020;Sankar et al, 2020;Carvalhal et al, 2021;Kishimoto et al, 2021;Sisman et al, 2021;Tanaka et al, 2021;Tiwari et al, 2021;Verma et al, 2021;Maruo et al, 2022;Takahara et al, 2022), and nine (41%) were cohort (Capaldo et al, 2020;Grabia et al, 2020;Jindal, 2020, 2021;Ruiz-Roso et al, 2020;Amataiti et al, 2021;Caruso et al, 2021;Hansel et al, 2021;Vetrani et al, 2021). All studies were published between 2020 and 2021.…”

“…The total number of diabetic patients for this systematic review was 13,381. Six studies were performed on both types of diabetes (Grabia et al, 2020;Hansel et al, 2021;Kishimoto et al, 2021;Sisman et al, 2021;Maruo et al, 2022;Takahara et al, 2022), and nine studies on type2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) (Ghosh et al, 2020;Jindal, 2020, 2021;Munekawa et al, 2020;Olickal et al, 2020;Ruiz-Roso et al, 2020;Sankar et al, 2020;Tiwari et al, 2021;Verma et al, 2021), four studies on type1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) (Capaldo et al, 2020;Caruso et al, 2021;Carvalhal et al, 2021;Vetrani et al, 2021), and three studies were conducted on any types of diabetes and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) (Khader et al, 2020;Amataiti et al, 2021;Tanaka et al, 2021). Due to the restrictions and limitations of the pandemic, most studies used online or phone questionnaires as assessment tools.…”

The Experiences of People with Diabetes during COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

“…A high prevalence of fears and worries were found among people with diabetes and this requires urgent interventions [ 25 ]. News media and social media platforms have played significant roles in increasing the fears and worries among people with chronic disease, especially those with diabetes [ 26 , 27 ], through amplifying their perceptions of risk. This area of investigation should be highlighted in future research…”