Investigating Demographic, Clinical and Treatment Outcome Characteristics of Patients with Diabetic Foot Infections

Abstract Diabetic foot infection is a major complication of diabetes mellitus and is associated with a high morbidity and cost rate for the patients and community.This study was conducted to investigate demographic, clinical and treatment outcome characteristics of these patients. This study is a descriptive/ analytical cross-sectional research conducted on data from medical records of 204 diabetic foot infection patients admitted to Razi Hospital,Rasht,1390.The main variables of the study were: age, gender, type and duration of diabetes, duration of diabetic foot infection, FBS and BS, history of amputation, smoking, severity of infection, type of treatment (antibiotic therapy /surgery), type of surgery (debridment/amputation) and treatment outcome. The data were analyzed using spss16 software. The association of variables were analyzed using chi-square test. The mean age of the patients was 60.69±11.63 years. 57.8 % of the patients were male. 92.2% of them had type 2 diabetes. The mean duration of diabetes was 14.94±10.4 years.77.9% of the patients underwent medical and surgical treatment for diabetic foot infection. 101 cases (49.5%) had limb amputation. 5 patients (2.5%) died. There was a significant association between BS and FBS on admission and severity of diabetic foot infection(p=0.0001 & 0.03 respectively). High rate of amputations in our study in comparison to other similar studies (about half of our cases versus 14-24% in other studies) shows that further research on the causes and alternative treatment and preventive methods for this problem are required.