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Gender differential in the pattern and severity of perceived symptoms among diabetes patients in India

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Abstract

Objective

To analyze the pattern of diabetes symptoms and to estimate the association between diabetes symptom severity (level of discomfort perceived by a patient due to diabetes symptoms) among different socio-demographic variables for both women and men.

Methods

Primary cross-sectional data of 583 diagnosed patients (51.3% and 48.7%, women and men, respectively) were collected from Punjab, India. Frequency percentage distribution and negative binomial regressions (NBR) were used for analysis.

Results

More men were asymptomatic compared to women. Both genders perceived increased hunger, thirst, and frequent urination in their early stages of diabetes. More women than men have experienced hormonal change as their first symptom with a higher severity level. NBR analyzed the association between discomfort perceived by both genders due to symptoms among different socio-demographic categories. Urban patients (incidence rate ratio—IRR: 0.90) were significantly (p = 0.056) less likely to perceive discomfort than their rural counterparts, whereas men (IRR: 0.93) reported more significant discomfort than women (IRR: 0.88) in the urban area. Literate patients [Up to class 10 (IRR: 0.87), (p = 0.013) and 11–above (IRR: 0.85), (p = 0.022) categories] were significantly less likely to perceive discomfort. In all education categories, women professed more significant discomfort than men.

Conclusion

Given the differences in symptoms between the two genders, this paper will help comprehend the disease development process and limit the possibilities of misdiagnosis. This study will assist in identifying the order of the symptoms among both genders.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Code for data cleaning and analysis is provided as part of the replication package and is available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the patients with diabetes who participated in this study.

Funding

There is no funding involved in this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, 175005, India

    Shubham Ranjan & Ramna Thakur

Authors
  1. Shubham Ranjan
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  2. Ramna Thakur
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Contributions

RT and SR conceived the idea. SR performed the statistical analysis, and SR prepared the initial draft of the manuscript. Both authors revised the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ramna Thakur.

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Conflict of interest

The authors do not have any conflict of interest.

Ethical committee approval

The authors have not conducted any experiments on human or animal subjects in this study.

Consent to participate

Data were collected after obtaining the informed consent of the patients. Field enumerators explained the purpose of the data collection to the subjects and got their approval before proceeding with the data collection.

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All the authors consented to publish in this journal.

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Ranjan, S., Thakur, R. Gender differential in the pattern and severity of perceived symptoms among diabetes patients in India. Diabetol Int 15, 223–236 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13340-023-00673-7

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