Frequency of Hyperglycemic Stress in Patients Referred to Emergency Department of Akbar Hospital in Mashhad Depending on the Type of Disease

Hyperglycemic stress is a transient increase in blood glucose during an acute physiological stress in the absence of diabetes. In children, a blood glucose level of >150 mg/dl is considered as hyperglycemia. The purpose of this study was determining the frequency of hyperglycemic stress based on the underlying diseases in patients referred to the emergency department of a pediatric hospital in Mashhad-Iran.
This cross-sectional study enjoyed census sampling method. Participants of the study were 201 patients including 120 boys (59.7%) and 81 girls (40.3%) with mean age of 3.01 ± 3.03 years (age range: 2 months to 15 years). Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS software version 21. Chi-square test was used to compare the qualitative variables. For quantitative statistical analysis, normality of data was evaluated by Smirnov Kolmogorov tests. Afterwards, Pearson correlation test and independent T test were used for analyzing the quantitative data.
Findings revealed that there is not any significant correlation between the type of disease and hyperglycemia, while temperature and dehydration are directly associated with hyperglycemia. Furthermore, no connection was found between convulsion and the risk of increased glucose level, but status seizure had an important role in hyperglycemia. In fact, the degree of hyperglycemia increased with worsening the disease.
The severity of disease, high body temperature and dehydration rate are important risk factors in the rate and severity of hyperglycemia.