Frequency of Degree of Depression in Relation to the Duration of Diabetes Mellitus in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Patients Aged 20-55 Years

Objective: To determine the frequency of depression and the relation of duration of diabetes with degree of depression. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, North Nazimabad, Karachi, Pakistan. The duration of the study was six months from December 2017 to May 2018. It comprised of male and female patients between the age brackets of 20-55 years of age who had been pre-diagnosed with diabetes for at least 5 years and were currently not on any anti-depressants and did not have history of any other psychiatric illness. Demographic data including the age, sex, education level, marital status, occupation and religious belief of the participants along with the duration of diabetes for each individual was recorded. The ICD-10 major depression inventory was translated into Urdu and validated in the same institution before this study was conducted and was administered during face-to-face interviews. ICD here refers to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) which is the international standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes. A minimum score of 4 or 5 in two of the first three items plus a score of at least 3 on two or three of the last seven items means that the person is mildly depressed and as the score increases so does the severity of depression. Results: Of the 378 people who were assessed 216 (57.1%) were depressed. Data analysis showed that out of the 216 depressed patients, 25.7% had mild, 26.2% had moderate, 4.2% had severe and 1.3% had major depression. On performing chi-square test there was a relation between the increase in duration of diabetes and the degree of depression. Conclusion: Results of our sample show that a higher degree of depression is related to a longer duration of diabetes.