Factors Associated with Diabetic Foot Ulceration among Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 Patients at Dow University Hospital, Karachi

Diabetic foot ulcer is one of the important problems related to diabetes which affects the quality of life of the diabetic patients. Objective: To determine the factors (demographic characteristics, glycemic control, CVD or CKD) associated with diabetic foot ulceration among diabetic patients. Methods: A registered patient’s data taken from Dow University Hospital (DUH), Karachi.The multiple risk factors which includedphysical activity, smoking status, dietary intakes, duration of diabetes and co-morbidities. Multiple logistic regression and STATA version 15 was used to analyze the overall results and p value < 0.05 was considered to statistically significant.Results: In DM Type 2 patients, 664(71.4%) were male and 266 (28.6%) were female and the median age was 53.23 years.The hypertensive patients were 4.33 times higher risk of developing DFU (OR=4.33, 95% CI: 2.11-8.89, p<0.001) and the CVD patients was 2.67 times higher risk of developing DFU (OR=2.67, 95% CI: 1.25-5.68, p=0.011). The diabetic patients who did regularly exercises were 68% less chances of risk of developing DFU (OR=1.68, 95% CI: 0.16-0.74 p=0.006). On the other hand, the diabetic patients for regular foot checkup were 2.02 times less chances of developing DFU (OR=2.04, 95% CI: 0.02-0.11 p<0.001).According to evaluation of HADS, the anxiety (p=0.023) and depression (p<0.01) score were more increased in DFU patients as compare to without DFU patients. Conclusion: Risk factors (age, BMI, duration of diabetes, physical activity, co- morbidities and anxiety and depression) were highly connected with DM type 2 diabetic foot ulcers patients.