Diabetes Mellitus in Al-Ain: the impact on hospital services

ABSTRACT

Patients with diabetes mellitus made up 5.8 per cent of all general medical admissions to the Al - Ain Hospital over a 5- year period ending October 1984. Of these 685 adults, the case records of 360 patients were available for review and are the material for the clinical part of this study. 40.6 per cent of these were of indigent nationality, and 61.8 per cent of patients in this group were female. Type II diabetes mellitus featured in 71.7 per cent of patients in this same group, whose ages ranged from 41 to 70 years. The larger expatriate patient group showed a male preponderance [67.2 per cent] and presented at a younger age [range 21 -50 years]. 43 per cent of patients in this group showed type I diabetes mellitus. Both groups of patients presented relatively low body weights [less than 70kg] and, although compliance to therapy was satisfactory, there was notably poor clinical control of their disease. Notwithstanding this, the rate of both acute and chronic complications was low and, although overall mortality was noted at 3.2 per cent, no deaths could be directly attributed to the metabolic derangements associated with the disease