Burden of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (TID) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from 2014-2018

Background: Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (TID), is a disease that has long been connoted to as insulin-dependent, childhood-onset, young adult-onset or juvenile onset diabetes with essential insulin deficiency that requires daily insulin administration with peak onset during puberty (10-15) years of age.

Aim: This study was aimed at assessing the Burden of TID among diagnosed Autoimmune disease in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Methods: From 2014 to 2018, individuals with Autoimmune, Immunological and Rare disease were identified from the hospital records of Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, which records information on all patient coming in for healthcare services. A structured data extraction tool was employed to extract the data from the hospital record using the open data kit (ODK). Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23 and R Studio statistical software for analysis. The Chi-square test was used to test for association. All statistical tests were two-tailed and Level of Confidence was set at 95%, and P values < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Results: The mean age of patient with Type 1 Diabetes was 26.58 ± 11.73 yrs. old and the median Age was 31 years. old, almost two-third 81(64.8%) were females. Yearly, women showed a significantly higher incidence of T1D than men, there was an annual decrease in the incidence from 2014 to 2018, with a peak incidence in 2014 (0.49/1000 person-years). There was an annual decrease in the incidence from 2014 to 2018, with a peak incidence in 2017 for male (0.40/1000 person-years) and in 2014 for females (0.69/1000 person-years). The lowest incidence was noted in 2018 (0.00/1000 person-years) and (0.08/1000 person-years) for both male and female respectively. There was increased mortality in people with T1D with a baseline of 3% in 2014 to 33% in 2018.

Conclusions: Sequel to the findings of this study, the incidence of autoimmune disease, Type 1 diabetes Mellitus have decreased in the last decade, whereas the mortality rates have increased. This finding of increased mortality of T1D suggests that this disease is no longer rare and will have implications for future healthcare planning.