Characterisation of sedentary lifestyle in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Family Health Centres

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) represents a significant public health concern with a global impact(1,2). According to the International Diabetes Federation, in 2021 the global prevalence of this pathology was 10.5% and 12.7% in Chile(3). Of these cases, 90% are cases of type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM2). One of the risk factors for its management and prognosis, once diagnosed, is a sedentary lifestyle(3). A sedentary lifestyle rate of 86.7% has been reported in Chile(4). However, to our knowledge, there is no data on sedentary lifestyles in the diabetic population of the commune of Copiapó. Therefore, this study aimed to describe and compare the level of sedentary lifestyle in women and men with DM2 in the Family Health Centres (CESFAM) of Copiapó (Chile). A cross-sectional study was conducted using data obtained from participants in the CODIACO cohort. Twenty-five individuals, comprising both sexes and aged between 30 and 65 years, diagnosed with DM2 and users of the CESFAMs of Copiapó, were included. These individuals also had mobile devices capable of installing the accelerometry application ‘Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite’. Pregnant and lactating women, patients with diabetic neuropathy or nephropathy, cancer, and severe inflammatory or infectious diseases were excluded. They were asked to activate and deactivate the application for 7 to 12 days, at waking and bedtime, respectively. Physical activity and sedentarism were determined when the accelerometer was over or below 0.6 mm/sec2 respectively from the total daily activity (%). WhatsApp transmitted the information recorded to estimate each participant’s sedentary lifestyle level. A Student’s t-test for independent samples was employed to compare the percentage of sedentary behaviour between women and men. The results were expressed as the mean and standard deviation. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The CODIACO study was approved by the Scientific Research Ethics Committee of the Universidad de Atacama. The project was funded by FONDECYT N° 11180794. The number of women in the sample was 19 (76%) and the number of men was 6 (24%). The values of sedentary lifestyle for women were 85.32 ± 9.5%, which was similar to those found in men, 82.5 ± 10.31%. Although women show a higher tendency to increase sedentary lifestyle behaviour, The T-test did not determine differences between sexes (p>0.05), maybe, due to the high number of women compared with men in the sample. The level of s