The prevalence of painful diabetic neuropathy in 300 Moroccan diabetics

Painful diabetic neuropathy is a frequent complication of diabetes. Its diagnosis is clinical. Our goal is to determine the prevalence of painful diabetic neuropathy in this population. We also analyzed the relationship between this neuropathy and certain parameters, concerning the patient and his diabetes. It is a cross sectional study conducted at the department of endocrinology and internal medicine of Avicenne hospital Marrakech-Morocco, among a cohort of 300 diabetic outpatients. We used the DN4 questionnaire (Douleur Neuropathique en 4 questions), for diagnosis. The results showed a prevalence of 15%. In this study: advanced age, female gender, duration of diabetes greater than 10 years, and the lack of medical follow up were found to be statistically significant risk factors for painful diabetic neuropathy, in addition to some diabetes-related comorbidities such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, sedentary life style and diabetic retinopathy. Painful diabetic neuropathy remains undertreated, in fact 74% of our patients did not receive any specific treatment, knowing that the progress in developing effective and well-tolerated therapies has been disappointing.