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New results from the Diabetes Surveillance
Diabetes mellitus is characterized by chronically elevated blood sugar levels, which can lead to concomitant and secondary diseases. These include, for example, diabetic foot syndrome, which can result in amputation of the lower limb. Diabetes-related complications can necessitate hospital treatment. Furthermore, diabetes can reduce occupational performance or even restrain people from working. For the indicators diabetes-related amputations, ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalisations and reduced earning capacity pension, the development over time has now been analyzed until the year 2022.
Diabetes mellitus can lead to circulatory disorders and nerve damage to the extremities. If, for example, diabetic foot syndrome occurs, untimely or inadequate care can result in amputation of the lower limbs. Diabetes-related amputations showed a steady decline between 2015 and 2019, which did not continue during the subsequent years of the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022.
Diabetes-related complications may require treatment in hospital. As diabetes-related complications are largely preventable with appropriate outpatient treatment, hospitalisations with a main diagnosis of diabetes are an indicator of the quality of ambulatory care for this disease. Over time, ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalisations due to diabetes decreased slightly between 2015 and 2019. There was a significant decline in 2020, which was temporally related to the COVID-19 pandemic and may be due to a general reduction in the utilisation of inpatient care. In the two subsequent years 2021 and 2022, ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalisations stagnated.
Diabetes can significantly reduce physical capacity and make it difficult or even impossible to work. The procurement of a reduced earning capacity pension is considered as an expression of reduced occupational capacity. With the exception of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the trend over time indicates that the procurement of a reduced earning capacity pension with a primary or secondary diagnosis of diabetes declined between 2013 and 2022.