Glycemic Control in Diabetic Patients During COVID-19 Pandemic, A Study from North Al-Batinah, Oman

Background and Objective: The prevalence of diabetes is persistently rising. Diabetics are prone to infections that can affect glycemic control. Recent COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the increased global burden of diabetes. The current study was done to find the glycemic control of diabetic patients during COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional observational study was conducted wherein the clinical and laboratory parameters were extracted from the computerized databases using a predesigned questionnaire. The HbA1C lab values were checked for the registered participants from 2018 to 2021. The chi-square test was used to compare the frequency of uncontrolled and controlled diabetes covariates. Paired t-test was used to compare mean HbA1c values. Results: A total of 314 diabetic patients were studied, 66.66% were females, 58.6% were more than 60 years and 33.1% were 45-60 years. A statistically significant difference (p<0.05) was found between liver disease patients in uncontrolled (25%) and controlled diabetes (64.4%). The study showed that control of diabetes worsened with the advent of COVID. Uncontrolled diabetes was 63.4% in 2018 before COVID-19 started and subsequently increased from 2019 (64.6%) to 2020 (69.7%) to 2021 (70.4%). There was a significant mean difference in HbA1c readings between 2018-2020 (p<0.05); 2019-2020 (p<0.01) and 2019-2021 (p<0.01). Conclusion: The current study showed that during COVID the control of diabetes declined as evidenced by HbA1c values of 7.8 pre-COVID to 8.1 post-COVID suggesting that during COVID, patients did not get optimal care and could not visit hospitals often for advice which led to uncontrolled diabetes. This suggested COVID-19 affected HbA1c status supporting the hypothesis towards uncontrolled diabetes.