The Impact of Diabetes Mellitus on Functional Disability among the Patients with and without Diabetic Polyneuropathy: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Background and Objective: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a global epidemic associated with increased health expenditure and low quality of life. The complications of diabetes such as diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) is associated with an increased risk of physical disability, and later may result in early death. The objective of this study was to evaluate the functional disability in patients with and without DPN. Methods: A total of 260 subjects were recruited and divided into three groups, DM with DPN (G1), isolated DM (G2), and controls (G3) with 65, 65 and 130 subjects respectively. They
were assessed for functional disability with WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) questionnaire. A simple mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the Demographic variables, whereas one-way ANOVA and Tukey test for multiple comparison were used to analyse the data. Results: The overall WHODAS scores of the three groups were 48.97 ± 8.87, 38.38 ± 2.83 and 36.26 ± 0.84 respectively. There was a significant statistical difference in WHODAS in G1, G2 and G3 (p = 0.000). Conclusion: The functional disability is more in patients with DM with
and without DPN when compared to controls.