STM Article Repository

Introduction: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) affects the majority (70% to 90%) of diabetic patients, causes visual impairment. Diabetes and vision loss can profoundly affect a patient's life. In addition, it can cause a substantial psychosocial impact. Unfortunately, there is still a considerable void in identifying, awareness and managing psychosocial distress in DR patients.

Objective: Our objective was to identify various psychosocial symptoms and evaluate the extent of psychosocial impairment in patients with different DR types.

Materials and Methods: A pretested questionnaire was used to collect data from diabetic patients at the Retina Clinic of CH Nagri Eye Hospital in Ahmedabad.It comprised ocular history, diabetes history, ocular examination data, and retinopathy type (if present). In addition, the patients were requested to complete the "General Health Questionnaire -28 (GHQ 28) for psychosocial assessment" in Gujarati.The self-scoring ranged from 0-1-2-3. (lower to higher disability, respectively). The Mann-Whitney Test was used to determine significance using statistical software.

Results: The researchers looked at 308 cases in all. The participants were separated: (A) Diabetes Mellitus Type-2 (DM-2) patients without retinopathy. (B) DM-2 patients having Non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. (C) DM-2 patients having Proliferative diabetic retinopathy. 80.26 percent of patients with non-proliferative retinopathy and 93.75 percent of patients with proliferative retinopathy in both eyes were psychosocially affected, according to the GHQ-28 score (cutoff of point 25).In patients with proliferative retinopathy, the impairment was shown to be more severe than in those with non-proliferative retinopathy. (p-value <0.005) (Mean GHQ score in PDR=41.88 > NPDR = 35.74). In DM-2 patients without retinopathy, the average mean score was 25.22, which showed less impairment (p-value <0.005). Detailed analysis showed that there was more impairment in the field of social dysfunction.

Conclusion: Diabetic Retinopathy patients had a higher level of psychosocial impairment, indicating that it has a substantial influence on quality of life and overall health.

As a result, affected individuals must receive psychiatric counselling in order to reduce the disease's influence on the psychosocial side of their health. Along with disease control, it is vital to reduce psychosocial suffering.