Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an iceberg-like disease. It remains undetected being generally asymptomatic during most of its course. As it is hidden beneath the outward asymptomatic appearance, the disease does immense harm to the body.
Objective: 1.To reveal the prevalence of DM among residents in urban field practice area. 2. To study the association of risk factors with DM.
Material and Methods: It was a community-based cross-sectional house-to-house study conducted in an urban-field practice area of Kurnool Medical College. A pretested semistructured questionnaire was used. A total of 630 study subjects aged above 15 years belonging 189 houses participated in the study. Information was collected about their age, sex, education, occupation, socioeconomic status, and habits such as smoking, betel-nut chewing, alcohol intake, and dietary pattern. Their height and weight were measured and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Blood pressure and blood sugar levels of the subjects were measured. 2-Test was used to test the significance.
Result: The prevalence of DM among the study population was found to be 12.8%. DM was found to be significantly associated with age, literacy status, BMI, alcohol consumption, blood pressure, and amount of physical inactivity.
Conclusion: Considering the high prevalence of DM among the study population, necessary preventive and corrective measures needs to be promoted. This study indicates the importance of including persons with risk factors such as physical inactivity, overweight and obesity, alcohol intake, hypertension, and smoking in the community, and the need for planning intervention programs that include dietary modification, control of risk factors, regular exercise, initiating the appropriate treatment and avoiding the complications.
Key words: Diabetes mellitus, risk factors, physical activity
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