Study reports high prevalence of depression in type 2 diabetes patients

China: Researchers in a new study published in Frontiers in Medicine have reported a remarkable prevalence of depression in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in China. Potential risk factors of depression in this study population included age ≥ 60 years, women, complications, low educational level, insulin use, living alone, and duration of diabetes ≥ 10 years. 

Xiaobo Liu, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China, and colleagues stress the need for high-quality epidemiological investigations on the prevalence of depression in Chinese T2DM patients for a better understanding of the depression status in T2DM. 

Type 2 diabetes prevalence is on rising in China. Depression in T2DM patients interferes with the management of blood glucose resulting in poor treatment outcomes and high dementia and cardiovascular event risk. The researcher's team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the prevalence of depression in T2DM patients in China and explore potential risk factors associated with depression in T2DM.

For this purpose, the researchers conducted a literature search in online databases from their inception to February 25, 2022. It included population-based, cross-sectional surveys that investigated the prevalence of depression in Chinese T2DM patients and studied possible risk factors. They also manually searched for gray literature and reference lists. 

 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality methodology checklist was used to assess the risk of bias in the included studies. Screening of studies, data extraction, and evaluation of the risk of bias independently was done independently by two reviewers. 

The pooled prevalence of depression in Chinese T2DM patients was the primary outcome, and the secondary outcomes included potential risk factors for depression in T2DM patients. R (version 3.6.1) and Stata (version 12.0) software were used for data synthesis. 

A total of 48 reports were included that identified 108,678 subjects. Among the included reports, 4 were rated as low risk of bias, 40 moderate risks of bias, and 4 high risks of bias. 

To conclude, systematic review and meta-analysis indicate a pooled prevalence of depression in T2DM patients in China to be 25.9%. High-quality epidemiological surveys of the prevalence of depression in T2DM in China are needed to better understand the status of depression for T2DM.

Reference:

 Liu X, Li Y, Guan L, He X, Zhang H, Zhang J, Li J, Zhong D and Jin R (2022) A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence and Risk Factors of Depression in Type 2 Diabetes Patients in China. Front. Med. 9:759499. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.759499