Rising prevalence of diabetes: evidence from the national registry in North Macedonia

Abstract

Background Disease reporting and data collection are key tools for the health care systems in order to identify opportunities to address burden of diseases. The country’s diabetes patients register was the first registry to be integrated with the e-health system in North Macedonia in 2017. We aimed to estimate type 2 diabetes mellitus prevalence and effectiveness of diabetes control as one of the proposed national priorities in tackling the non-communicable diseases. Methods Cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on patients entered in the National Diabetes Register in 2017/2018. Patients’ socio-demographic and anthropometric characteristics in association with diabetes’ complications and outcomes were determined by Pearson correlation coefficient (P < 0.0001, 95% CI). Results This study identified a total of 35541 patients with a diagnosis of diabetes, out of which 32888 with type 2. This corresponds to a prevalence rate of 1583.9 per 100,000 population. The prevalence increased with age (65+) and was higher among females than males (56.8% vs. 43.2%). Over 80% of type 2 patients were overweight out of which 34.5% obese (BMI>30kg/m2). Diabetic retinopathy is reported as first diagnosed complication in diabetic patients, followed by neuropathies and vascular complications. Patient’s low level of education and higher BMI were associated with increased number of early and late-onset complications. Conclusions Evidence accumulating suggests high burden of complications in type 2 diabetic patients, indicating that the patients understanding of diabetes care, treatment adherence and healthy lifestyle are important topics to be address by health professionals in order to avoid complications and premature deaths in people with diabetes. Key messages Integrated reporting of non-communicable diseases and risk factors is needed to complete current information gaps, from completeness of data to quality and comparability. The action plan for chronic diseases should specifically address diabetes control, as most of the patients with diabetes have high prevalence of comorbidities, complications and unfortunate outcomes.