WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Dr. Dhuha Hilal Zaid*, Dr. Batool Ali Hassan and Dr. Anmar Dhia Alldeen Muhsin

ABSTRACT

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that require continuous medical care with multiple strategies to reduce the risks of long term complications. Better glycemic management of diabetes requires not only the prescription of an appropriate nutritional and pharmacological regime by the physician but also intensive education of the patient. So good knowledge, attitude, and practices of glycemic control are necessary in the management of diabetes mellitus. Objectives: To investigate knowledge, attitude and practice towards glycemic control and its associated factors among Diabetes patients. Patients and methods: A cross sectional study included 400 participants was conducted from 1st February 2022 till 30th June 2022 at the specialized center of endocrine disease and Diabetes/AlRusafa. Data was collected by structured questionnaire Which contained different items like socio-demographic and knowledge, attitude, and practice towards glycemic control. The data analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. Results: The overall knowledge score of the participants towards glycemic controls of diabetes was as follow: 52 (13%) had good knowledge, 248 (62%) had fair knowledge, and the remaining 100 (25%) were with poor knowledge. Regarding the overall attitude score, 112 participants (28%) had positive attitudes, and 288 (72%) had negative attitudes towards glycemic controls of diabetes. The overall practice score towards glycemic controls revealed that 78 (19.5%) were with good practices and the remaining 322 (80.5%) were with poor practices. Good knowledge was significantly higher among female gender, highly educated participants, employed participants, participants who live in urban areas, those who had a positive family history of diabetes mellitus, those who attended educational programs or lectures regarding diabetes mellitus, and those who had normal levels of fasting and postprandial blood glucose. Positive attitude was significantly higher among highly educated patients, employed patients and patients with positive family history of diabetes mellitus, the participants who attended educational programs or lectures regarding diabetes mellitus and among the participants who had high fasting glucose level and high HBA1C level. Good practices towards glycemic controls was significantly higher in highly educated participants and employed participants, the participants who attended educational programs or lectures regarding diabetes mellitus and among those who had normal levels of fasting and postprandial glucose. Conclusions: About two third of participants had fair knowledge, more than two third of participants had negative attitude and majority of the participants had poor practice towards glycemic control of DM. Education and counseling about all the aspects of DM are needed to increase patient involvement and self-reliance in the glycemic control of DM.

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