Clinical and Microbiological Profile of Urinary Tract Infections in Diabetic versus Non-Diabetic Individuals

Introduction Diabetic patients have a higher tendency of developing all infections, especially infections of the genitourinary tract. In most cases, urinary tract infections (UTI) in diabetic patients are asymptomatic. The aim of this study to was to compare the incidence and clinical and microbiological features of UTI between diabetic and non-diabetic patients. Methods In this prospective, comparative study, the incidence and clinical and microbiological features of UTI were compared between diabetic and non-diabetic patients via consecutive non-probability sampling technique. For every diabetic patient, one non-diabetic control was included. All patients were screened for UTI through a midstream urinary sample. Their demographic characteristics, clinical profile, and urinary microscopy were compared. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Results In the diabetes group, 35/256 (13.67%) patients had culture-positive UTI as compared to 18/250 (7.2%) in the non-diabetic group. Diabetic group had twice the risk of UTI (p = 0.01; odds ratio [OR]: 2.04; confidence interval [CI]: 1.12, 3.71) and female gender in the diabetic group had a risk of almost five times (p = 0.01; OR: 4.93; CI: 1.12, 20.16) that of the non-diabetic group. In the diabetic group, 31.4% patients were asymptomatic as compared to 5.6% in the non-diabetic group (p = 0.03; OR: 7.79; CI: 0.92, 66.18). E. coli was the most commonly identified microorganism in both groups. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was identified in 14% of diabetic cases and none in the non-diabetic. Conclusions UTIs are more frequent among diabetics. Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a more common entity in diabetic patients and does not require any treatment.