Prevalence, Pattern, and Potential Predictors of Microvascular Complications in Aging Nigerians with Type 2 Diabetes

In low-resource settings like Nigeria, the rising prevalence of diabetes is accompanied by an excessive burden of microvascular complications from diabetes. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and predictors of microvascular complications among older patients with diabetes mellitus. Therefore, a 2-year retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out among elderly diabetes patients at the Chief Tony Anenih Geriatric Center outpatient diabetes clinic. A total of 148 diabetic patients were included in the study; the mean (± standard deviation) age was 70.89 (±6.99) years, with 71.6% of the studied population being female. Logistic regression analysis was employed to determine the prevalence and predictors of microvascular complications. Results show that the prevalence of microvascular complications in older diabetes patients was 73.9% [95% confidence interval (CI)=66.7-81.6] with peripheral neuropathy (77.1% prevalence, 95% CI=67.9-84.8) being the most common and retinopathy being the least prevalent (95% CI=4.7-16.8). The significant predictors of developing microvascular complications were intake of oral agents only [p=0.013, odds ratio (OR)=2.35, 95% CI=1.15-16.81], number of comorbidities (p=0.041, adjusted OR=5.28, 95% CI=1.09-27.93) and systolic blood pressure (p=0.042, OR=1.02, 95% CI=1.00-1.04). Considering the high prevalence of microvascular complications among aging patients with diabetes mellitus, older patients should comply with oral medications and undergo regular check-ups, and more advocacy should be undertaken to strengthen geriatric healthcare systems to mitigate comorbidities and reduce complications.