Awareness of diabetes among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending a rural health and training center

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM), a major threat to both developing and developed countries, which can be easily prevented by lifestyle modifications. Because of lack of awareness, the occurrence of diabetes and its complications is showing a steady increase. Empowering the patients with knowledge about diabetic self-care is expected to have better outcome of the disease. Thus this study was planned to assess the awareness and knowledge about diabetes among the patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending rural health care center. The objective of the study was to assess the awareness of diabetes among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending a rural health and training centre (RHTC).Methods: A Cross sectional study was conducted to assess the awareness about diabetes among patients with type 2 diabetes, attending RHTC in Tamil Nadu. The study was conducted in outpatient clinic in RHTC, during the month of November and December 2017 and 258 patients with diabetes who gave written consent were included in the study. Data was collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire through one-to-one interviews. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS version 16.Results: It was found that, 63.1% of the participants had adequate knowledge regarding T2DM and family history of T2DM was one of the important determinant of having adequate knowledge regarding T2DM.Conclusions: Knowledge about diabetes is fair but still their practice on control of glycemic levels needs to be improved. This shows that there is a necessary to health educate the patients in order to prevent or postpone the complications of diabetes mellitus.