Depression among Korean Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Ansan-Community-Based Epidemiological Study

There are an increasing number of studies being carried out on depression in patients with diabetes. Individuals with diabetes have been reported as having a higher prevalence of depression compared to those without diabetes. However, only a few studies involving Korean patients have been conducted. The aims of this study were to examine the prevalence of depression and to find various risk factors according to the degree of depression among Korean patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

An Ansan-community-based epidemiological study was conducted from 2005 to 2012. The total number of participants in this study was 3,540, from which patients with diabetes (n = 753) have been selected. The presence of depression was evaluated using the Beck Depression Inventory total score.

The prevalence of depression was 28.8%. The mean age of participants was 55.5 ± 8.2 years. We divided the participants into three groups (without-depression, moderate-depression, and severe-depression groups) to examine the depression prevalence among Korean T2DM patients. The unemployed participants had 2.40 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.21-4.76], the low-income participants had 2.57 (95% CI 1.52-4.35), the participants using an oral diabetes medicine or insulin had 2.03 (95% CI 1.25-3.32), the participants who are currently smoking had 2.03 (95% CI 1.10-3.73), and those without regular exercise had 1.91 (95% CI 1.17-3.14) times higher odds of depression in the severe-depression group, compared with the without-depression group.

There was a significant association between depression prevalence and diabetes, and we found various risk factors according to the degree of depression in Korean patients with T2DM.