Objective:

To describe the behavior of diabetes in Costa Rica.

Materials and methods:

The population was made up of incident cases of DM nationally reported and processed in the Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Health for a total in the period 2012 to 2015 of 35, 837 people and projections of use of The external consultation, of the Costa Rican Social Security (CCSS) in the period 2012 to 2015, for a total of 1, 781, 164 consultations. A retrospective and cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out. The variables studied were sex, age, mortality, hospital exit, morbidity (use of external consultation service) and incidence. The collected data were annotated in an array of data using the Excel package.

Results:

Both the incidence and mortality for Diabetes Mellitus showed an increase for the study period. It is evidenced that as the age increases, the number of cases presented increases. According to sex, there is a ratio of 3 women to a man with DM. Regarding demography, the province of San José presents a greater number of discharges. However, it should be taken into account that in San José the largest population is concentrated and where the largest number of class A (specialized) hospitals is concentrated, which receive transfers from other regional hospitals according to the patient's condition. On the other hand, the province of Puntarenas presents an increase in the equity in relation to other provinces of the country.

Conclusions:

The incidence, as well as mortality by DM in Costa Rica, are variables that show an increase for the study period (2012-2015), cataloging to this disease as an epidemic globally, reason why it is considered a challenge for Health systems due to the complications it presents.