Introduction: Pre-diabetes is a metabolic condition characterised by moderate glycaemic dysregulation and is a frontline risk factor for multiple metabolic complications such as type 2 diabetes mellitus. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first systematic review and meta-analysis focusing on generating a comprehensive pooling of studies reporting on pre-diabetes prevalence in South Africa. Therefore, the review's purpose will be to screen and select reports that can be used to synthesise and provide the best estimate prevalence of pre-diabetes and its associated correlates in the South African population.
Methods and analysis: To determine the prevalence and correlates of pre-diabetes in South Africa, we searched PubMed, Web of Science, Google scholar and African Journal online for published or unpublished studies reporting the prevalence of pre-diabetes in South Africa starting from the year 2000 to 2020. Studies were assessed for eligibility by checking if they met the inclusion criteria.
Results & conclusion: The total number of studies deemed eligible is 13 and from these studies, an overall prevalence of pre-diabetes was reported to be 15,56% in the South African population. Hypertension, obesity and sedentary lifestyle were the common correlates recorded for the population of interest. Therefore, the review highlights the disturbingly high prevalence of pre-diabetes in South Africa and necessitates further investigations into the possible genetics, biochemical and hormonal changes in pre-diabetes.
Ethics and dissemination: The review will not require ethics clearance because non-identifiable data will be used. The review outcomes will give insight into the current burden that pre-diabetes has in South Africa.
Prospero registration number: CRD42020182430.
Copyright: © 2022 Sosibo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.