Awareness and Prevalence of Hypothyroidism in Endocrine Disordered Patients of Bangladesh

Abstract

Thyroid gland is an important endocrine organ which starts functioning in early fetal life and maintains the level of metabolism in the tissues that is optimal for their normal function and related with physical and mental growth. Imbalance of thyroid function can arise many severe problems. There can be many forms of thyroid disease and Hypothyroidism is one of the major forms of it. A study was conducted and this study was aimed to find out the prevalence of Hypothyroidism, its common symptoms, diagnosis and treatment pattern, and knowledge level of patients regarding this disease in Bangladesh. For this, 273 endocrine patients from 6 different hospitals were interviewed with a questionnaire and their prescriptions and medical test reports were observed. The Obtained data are analyzed by Microsoft excel. We have found that, 223 (82%) patients had thyroid disease and among thyroid disease patients 23% had hypothyroidism. Thyroid disease is primarily predominant in women (73%) but rate of hypothyroidism is little bit higher in male (57%) than female (43%) and suffering age range is 20-60 years (83%). The most common diagnosis test is TSH test (94%) because it is very effective in determining thyroid disease. However, along with TSH test, T4 testing is also very common in hypothyroid patients. In Bangladesh all of the hypothyroidism containing patients is treated with thyroid hormone therapy (Levothyroxine). Although knowledge level about the disease history not good enough the awareness level about the diagnostic pattern and treatment level (97%) of the respondents were quite satisfactory. However, most of the patients have misconception they will recover (94%). We have seen that the prevalence of under reactive thyroid disease among endocrine disease is high but knowledge level of patients of our country is relatively poor and needs to be improved. The most common cause of hypothyroidism worldwide is iodine deficiency and in our countries iodine deficiency is very common, especially at rural sites of the country. So Government should take adequate steps to lessen iodine deficiency as well as there should be proper steps in our country to make the hypothyroid patients and general public conscious about this disease.