Prevalence and severity of distal symmetrical polyneuropathy among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in zaria, nigeria

Background: Distal symmetrical polyneuropathy (DSPN) is among the common and serious complications of diabetes mellitus (DM). However, there is paucity of data on its prevalence and severity in Northern Nigeria. The study was, therefore, aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of DSPN among type 2 DM subjects at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, Nigeria. Method: This study was a cross-sectional comparative study of 330 type 2 diabetes subjects presenting consecutively at the endocrine clinic of ABUTH, Zaria and 165 healthy controls randomly selected from a community in Zaria. Socio-demographic data were obtained using an interviewer-administered questionnaire and subjects were physically examined. Biothesiometry and the United Kingdom Screening Test (UKST) were used to assess peripheral neuropathy in both cases and controls. Data was analysed with SPSS version-17 using Chi-square analysis and Student t-test. Results: The mean±SD age of the DM subjects was 49.60±9.81 years while that of the controls was 49.93±10.09 years (p=0.73). The prevalence of DSPN was 39.7% among type-2 diabetes patients and 6.1% among controls. Moderate and severe neuropathy were present in 30.3% and 6.0% of the diabetic subjects respectively. Conclusion: DSPN is commoner among people with diabetes mellitus when compared to healthy controls with a large proportion of subjects presenting with moderate severity. It is recommended that efforts be made to screen for DSPN among diabetes patients using simple and sensitive methods.