Abstract
Background
Diabetes is a chronic illness that requires continuous medical care to reach target glycaemic level to prevent complications. Most studies around the world have showed that glycaemic control among type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients is poor using measurements taken at one point and including all patients irrespective of the duration of illness. This study aimed to assess achievement of optimal glycaemic control at different points in time in relation to the time of diagnosis and initiation of treatment and to identify associated factors among T2DM patients attending diabetes clinic of public teaching hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Methods
A retrospective chart review was conducted from May to July 2018 among randomly selected 685 medical charts of patients who were on follow-up from January, 2013 to December, 2017. Association was assessed using Binary logistic regression, where 95% CIs for odds ratio and P-values were used for testing significance and interpretation of results.
Results
The prevalence of optimal glycaemic control among T2DM patients at the end of 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years and 5 years of diagnosis and treatment were 1.9%, 44.7%, 52.8%, 66.3%, 69.2%, 70.2% and 70.5% respectively. The significant factors were age group and type of treatment regimen.
Conclusions
Achievement of optimal glycaemic control increases as the follow-up duration increases; it was only 1.9% at the third month and 70.5% at the fifth year of observation. Close to one third of patients (29.5%) did not achieve target glucose even after five years and were at the verge of increased risk for diabetes related complications and death. Attention should be given to the time when patients achieve target glucoses level instead of just measuring the number of individuals who achieved glycaemic control in a short observation period.