Association between Comorbidities and Selected Sociodemographic Factors with Complications of Diabetes: Results from the National Diabetic Registry Malaysia

Background: This study aims to determine the hazard ratio of having any complication from diabetes mellitus, and the associations between comorbidities and risk of having any complications from diabetes mellitus among diabetic patients who have attended government primary care clinics. Methods: Secondary data were retrieved from the Malaysian National Diabetic Registry which included all patients who received care. The data from the study on the socio-demographic, diabetes complications, clinical and treatment characteristics were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Cox regression was performed to estimate the hazard ratio for comorbidities, tobacco use, duration of diabetes and socio-demography characteristics upon time to diabetic complications. Results: Adjusted for other covariates, increase number of comorbidities contributed the highest hazard ratio risk: 1 comorbid (aHR: 2.47, 95% CI: 2.39, 2.55), 2 comorbidities (aHR: 4.34, 95% CI: 4.22, 4.47), 3 comorbidities (aHR: 6.56, 95% CI: 6.31, 6.81) and 4 comorbidities (aHR: 9.13, 95% CI: 8.20, 10.17). Other factors: age > 40 years (8%) Malays (27%) and smokers (10%) have hazard risks to develop diabetic complications. Conclusions: Increase in number of comorbidities will increase the risk of getting diabetes complications. Other factors such as age, gender, race, smoking status and duration of diabetes are also noted to contribute to increase risk for diabetes complications.