Risk factors of diabetic nephropathy among non insulin dependent patients in Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur: a case control study, 1998

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus and nephropathy complications are among the diseases, which affected economic status, besides being one of the causes for morbidity and mortality. The risk factors of this disease were studied with an objective to have ideas how to prevent it from happening and therefore avoiding it from becoming a serious problem later on. A matched case control study involving NIDDM patients was conducted on early September 1998 in view to investigate the factors involved with nephropathy such as diabetic control, smoking, hypertension, family history of diabetes and diabetic duration. Respondents were categorized based on presence of micro albuminuria or macroalbuminuria. Seventy- two pairs of case and control were surveyed. Diabetic duration (p = 0.005), presence of lethargy and weakness prior diabetes diagnosis (p = 0.019), smoking duration (p = 0.014), hypertension duration (p= 0.000), systolic hypertension (p= 0.038), uncontrolled diabetes with poor HbA1c level (p= 0.026) and lack of diabetes knowledge (p = 0.049) were factors which related significantly to nephropathy by univariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, systolic hypertension (p = 0.0015), lack of diabetes knowledge (p = 0.0197), presence of lethargy symptom (p = 0.0027), prolonged diabetic duration ( p = 0.0301) and higher body mass indexs ( p = 0.0213 ) were predictors to diabetic nephropathy.