Diabetes Treatment and Mental Illness: A Call for an Integrated Health Care System in Underserved Semi-Rural Malaysia

Govindamal Thangiah, Hamimatunnisa Johar, Roshidi Ismail, Ulrich Reininghaus, Till Bärnighausen, Sivakumar Thurairajasingam, Daniel Reidpath and Tin Tin Su ()
Additional contact information
Govindamal Thangiah: South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) & Global Public Health, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia
Hamimatunnisa Johar: South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) & Global Public Health, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia
Roshidi Ismail: South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) & Global Public Health, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia
Ulrich Reininghaus: Department of Public Mental Health, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, 68159 Mannheim, Germany
Till Bärnighausen: Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Sivakumar Thurairajasingam: Clinical School Johor Bahru, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Johor Bahru 80100, Malaysia
Daniel Reidpath: Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh EH21 6UU, UK
Tin Tin Su: South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) & Global Public Health, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: Diabetes mellitus (DM) management imposes a tremendous psychological burden on patients. The study investigates the association between DM treatment with blood glucose (BG) control and common mental health conditions. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1821 individuals with DM in a community-based survey conducted in 2013. Information on respondents’ sociodemographic, mental health, DM treatment, and BG levels was collected. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to examine the association of diabetes treatment with controlled BG levels (<11.1 mmol/L) (42.5%, n = 774) or uncontrolled BG levels (34.3%, n = 625) compared with those not undergoing treatment (23.2%, n = 422) on depression anxiety, and stress. Having DM treatment and controlled BG was associated with high depressive symptoms (Relative Risk Ratio, RRR: 2.42; 95% CI 1.33–4.41) and high anxiety symptoms (1.66; 1.08–2.56) but not with perceived stress. However, treated DM with uncontrolled BG was associated with anxiety (high: 1.64; 1.05–2.56; low: 2.59; 1.10–6.09) but not depression or perceived stress. Our results suggest that being treated for DM, regardless of glucose control status, was associated with anxiety symptoms, whereas being treated with controlled BG was associated with high depressive symptoms. This situation highlights the need for integrative, multidisciplinary care for DM patients with mental health comorbidities.

Keywords: mental health; diabetes mellitus; diabetes control; blood glucose depression; anxiety; stress; glucose control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10015/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10015/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:16:p:10015-:d:887818

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().