Abstract:
Introduction:Diabetic foot ulcer are common problems in diabetes and the leading cause of prolonged
hospital admission, health-related costs, and reduced quality of life for diabetes patients.The general
objective of this study was to assess time to development of diabetic foot ulcer and it’s predictors
among diabetes mellitus patients by using coxPH model in the case of Jimma University Medical
Center, Jimma, Ethiopia.
Methodology: A retrospective study design was employed to collect the relevant information from the
medical records of diabetic patients from March 20, 2018, up to march 1 2023 at Jimma University
Medical Center.The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the survival time and Cox’s regression
model was employed to identify the covariates that statistically significant factors for development of
foot ulcers with the help of R software’s to analyse the data.
Results: A total of 703 diabetics patients were included in this study, of which 241(34.3%) patients
developed foot ulcer during the study period, with a minimum and maximum development times
of 32 and 53 months,respectively.The overall median development time was 35 months with (34,
37) 95% confidence interval.From multivariate Cox regression model analysis patients whose had
Overweight[HR=2.8568,CI:(1.42,5.76)], Obesity[HR=2.6723;CI:(1.11,6.46)],Peripheral neuropathy
[HR=2.1197;CI:(1.23,3.66)],Chronic kidney[HR= 1.52;CI:(1.002,2.31)],Alcohol intake[HR=1.6975;
CI:(1.16,2.49)], Hypertension[HR=2.12; CI:(1.18,3.81)], Vascular disease[HR=1.7143; CI:(1.22,1.7)],
Smoking[HR=1.3133; CI:(1.1,1.71) ] were statistically associated with development diabetic foot ulcer.
Conclusion:Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that, BMI,peripheral neuropathy,hypertension,
Smoking,Vascular disease,Alcohol,Kidney were the significat factors related to development time of
diabetic foot ulcers.Based on study results,it is recommended that diabetic patients with Peripheral
neuropathy have high risk for development of foot ulcers,so patients should have to control their life
style inorder to prevent foot ulcers.
