Foot self-care knowledge and practice evaluation among patients with diabetes

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a common major health problem and diabetic foot problems are important complications of diabetes. Patient’s awareness about proper foot care is important in preventing foot problems and amputations. Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and practices of foot self-care in people with diabetes attending diabetic clinic of secondary care hospital in Jazan region, southwest of Saudi Arabia. Design: This was a hospital-based descriptive, cross-sectional study. Setting: This study was conducted in diabetic clinic of secondary care hospital. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, using non-probability convenience sampling, 132 respondents with diabetes fulfilling the inclusion criteria were assessed by a modified pretest two questionnaires that consisted of 11 questions, each were adopted to assess the foot-care knowledge and practices. Knowledge and practices regarding foot-care were classified as good, satisfactory, and poor depending upon the score.Each question was assigned 1 mark. A score ≥70% (8–11) was regarded as good, 50–69% (6–7) as satisfactory, and ≤50% (5 or less) as poor both for knowledge and practice of foot-care. Results: There were 103 (78.0%) male and 29 (22.0%) female patients with the mean age of 51.97 years ± 9.2195 standard deviation (SD). Mean score of knowledge about foot care was 8.37 ± 3.106 SD and median score was 10.0, whereas the mean score of practices about foot care was 8.14 ± 2.518 SD with median score of 8.0. A positive correlation was observed between the knowledge scores and the practice score (P < 0.001). Education has statistically significant impact on the knowledge (P = 0.001) and practices (P = 0.001) regarding foot care. Socioeconomic status had significant impact on knowledge and practices regarding foot care with P value of <0.05. Conclusion: This observational study revealed that many people with diabetes had negative behaviors toward foot -care. This simple quality initiative concludes the notion that people with diabetes should receive ongoing foot-specific education to prevent foot problems and complications.