The prevalence of diabetes distress in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To systematically evaluate the prevalence of Diabetes Distress (DD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in China. Methods The PubMed, PsycInfo, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, China Knowledge Resource in Integrated Database (CNKI), WanFang Database, Weipu Database (VIP), and Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM) electronic databases were searched from inception to August 2022, for cross-sectional studies, that reported prevalence of DD. Results This study included 55 articles involving 13,160 patients with T2DM. The pooled prevalence of DD was 53.2%. The results of the subgroup analysis showed that among the five regions in China, the highest prevalence of DD was observed in Central China (66%), while the lowest prevalence was recorded in North China (23%). The highest prevalence of DD was 82% in unmarried people. while the lowest prevalence of DD among outpatients was as low as 42%. The results of meta-regression showed that there was no correlation between the prevalence of DD and the year of publication, the average age of the patients, or the duration of the disease. Conclusion More than half of T2DM patients in China may suffer from DD, which is not conducive to the self-management of diabetes patients. The burden on the healthcare system and the burden of disease on individual patients may increase as a result. Medical staff should pay attention to the monitoring and management of the mental health status of patients with T2DM.