title: Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Nepal: a systematic review and meta-analysis from 2000 to 2014.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Understanding the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Nepal can help in planning for health services and recognising risk factors. This review aims to systematically identify and collate studies describing the prevalence of type 2 diabetes, to summarise the findings, and to explore selected factors that may influence prevalence estimates.
  
  
  METHODS
  This systematic review was conducted in adherence to the MOOSE Guidelines for Meta-Analysis and Systematic Reviews of Observational Studies. Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLINE) database from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2014 was searched for the prevalence of type 2 diabetes among Nepalese populations with a combination of search terms. We exploded the search terms to include all possible synonyms and spellings obtained in the search strategy. Additionally, we performed a manual search for other articles and references of published articles.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 65 articles; 10 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included in the analyses. These 10 studies comprised a total of 30,218 subjects. The sample size ranged from 489 to 14,009. All the studies used participants older than age 15, of whom 41.5% were male and 58.5% female. All the studies were cross-sectional and two were hospital-based. Prevalence of type 2 diabetes ranged from a minimum of 1.4% to a maximum of 19.0% and pooled prevalence of type 2 diabetes was 8.4% (95% CI: 6.2-10.5%). Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in urban and rural populations was 8.1% (95% CI: 7.3-8.9%) and 1.0% (95% CI: 0.7-1.3%), respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is, to our knowledge, the first study to systematically evaluate the literature of prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Nepal. Results showed that type 2 diabetes is currently a high-burden disease in Nepal, suggesting a possible area to deliberately expand preventive interventions as well as efforts to control the disease.
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.|Nepal Development Society (NEDS), Bharatpur, Nepal; bishal@ph.au.dk.
authors.forename: Bishal
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gyawali
authors.affiliation: Nepal Development Society (NEDS), Bharatpur, Nepal.
authors.forename: Rajan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.|Nepal Development Society (NEDS), Bharatpur, Nepal.
authors.forename: Dinesh
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Neupane
authors.affiliation: Nepal Development Society (NEDS), Bharatpur, Nepal.
authors.forename: Shiva Raj
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, Bournemouth University, Dorset, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Teijlingen
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kallestrup
mesh_terms: D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009390:Nepal / Q000453:epidemiology; D011236:Prediabetic State; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population
keywords: South Asia; epidemiology; prevalence; systematic review; type 2 diabetes