Abstract
Background: Diabetic coma is one of the most common and life-threatening complications of diabetes. Knowing the symptoms, preventive measures and case management can help in increasing patient safety in this case.
Objectives: to evaluate the prevalence of diabetes and the prevalence of diabetic coma among the studied diabetic patients and to illustrate the relationship between type of diabetic coma and type of DM, period of diabetes and to show the place and type of management of such case. Methods:
Methods: A cross-sectional community-based study carried out on 1036 participants, 250 of them were diabetic (both type I and II DM) in different areas of Saudi Arabia, during the period from 1 May to 30 August 2018. Data collected by a pre-designed online self-administered questionnaire which disseminated allover Saudi Arabia
Results: The study included 1036 participants, 72.4% were females and 27.6% were males. Diabetes was receded in 24.1% of the total number of participants, 53.6% of them had type 2 diabetes and 46.4% had type 1. The type of diabetic treatment was insulin in 28.0%, diet control in 38.8%, tablets in 21.6% and tablets and insulin and diet control. As regards to type of diabetic coma, our study found that in diabetic patients who experienced diabetic coma, 24.8% had hypoglycemic coma and 9.6% had hyperglycemic. As regards the management of diabetic coma, hospital management in the emergency room was reported in 70.6% of the patients and improvement in ER was reported in 85.7% and 14.3% needed a hospital admission.
Conclusion: in Saudi Arabia, our study found that in diabetic patients who experienced diabetic coma, 24.8% had hypoglycemic coma and 9.6% had hyperglycemic. Awareness of the diabetic patients about causes and manifestations of diabetic coma is higly recommended for prevention of this life threatening condition. Also we recommend a large scale and more detailed researches in this topic.