Prevalence and Risk Factors of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in T2DM Patient Presenting to Community Hospital in Nepal.

Background Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a well-known microvascular complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) attributed to chronic hyperglycemia, and is defined as the presence of peripheral nerve dysfunction in patients with diabetes after exclusion of other causes. Objective To determine the prevalence and risk factors of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Method A cross sectional study was carried out in a University Teaching Hospital. Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with diabetes duration of more than 6 months were recruited. Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrument Scoring was used to diagnose Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy. Result Among a total of 160 patients who were enrolled, 61 (38.1%) had diabetic peripheral neuropathy and 26 (16%) had diabetic peripheral neuropathy within 1 year of being diagnosed with diabetes. Mean Diabetes duration was 5.56 years and mean age was 57.32 years, with 90 (56%) of the participants being female. The mean HbA1c was 8.33%. Among them 25% of the participants were alcoholics and 30% were smoker. No statistically significant risk factors are evident on multivariate analysis. Conclusion Diabetic peripheral neuropathy was found to be highly prevalent in patients with type 2 diabetes including the patients with relatively shorter diabetes duration. This finding warrants the need of improving the preventive measures and quality of care related to foot complication among patients with type 2 diabetes.