Abstract

PREVALENCE OF DIABETES MELLITUS IN GERIATRICS AND DRUG UTILIZATION EVALUATION IN GERIATRICS

Sharon Varghese*, Chinju K. Sabu, Arya O., Shara Abraham, Jayakumar K. S., Jiji Alfred

ABSTRACT

Background: Lifestyle diseases are ailments that are primarily based on the day to day habits of people. More than 60% of death globally are linked to lifestyle diseases such as Diabetes cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer, and are projected to account for 47 million deaths annually in the next 25 years. The main cause identified was substantial changes in people’s diet along with the increased consumption of meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and alcoholic beverages. Methods: A Prospective cross sectional study was carried out in Eraviperoor Grama Panchayath of Pathanamthitta district in Kerala on the topic prevalence of lifestyle diseases and drug utilization evaluation in geriatrics. Result: Geriatric patients with in the age group 61-70 were more affected with lifestyle disease and females are more prone to lifestyle disease than males. Lifestyle disease were more prevalent in unemployed patients. The most prevalent lifestyle disease is hypertension 45%, followed by coronary artery disease 18.2%. Diabetes mellitus holds 15.8% trailed by dyslipidaemia 8.8%. Osteoporosis accounts for 3%, angina 1.8% and congestive heart failure 0.6%. While Diabetes has a more prominent medical history 37.4% followed by dyslipidaemia 37% and hypertension 22.8%. In diabetic patients the most common individual co- morbidity was retinopathy, followed by nephropathy and the most shared multiple co-morbidity identified was retinopathy and neuropathy. The major individual risk factor leading to diabetes was found to be age and family history. The patients adherence to drug therapy was measured by fourteen questionnaires and 376(75.3%) of them had excellent adherence to their drug therapy while 57(11.5%) were having average adherence and only 4% are poorly adherent to drug therapy. The reason for non- adherence was measured in the patients and the main reason for non-adherence was found to be the lack of knowledge about their medications. The pattern of prescribing according to the standard guideline was assessed and deviation was observed from its standard regimen, this in turn can lead to their treatment failure. Conclusion: This study recommended that health policy makers must conduct more effective health education sessions to increase knowledge of the population and their caregivers about various aspects of lifestyle diseases and the importance of compliance with its treatment.

Keywords: Lifestyle Diseases; Diabetes Mellitus; Knowledge; Adherence.