WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

*Dr. Ohood Sabah Handhal (M.B.Ch.B.) and Dr. Saba Abbas Fadhil (M.B.Ch.B., F.I.C.M.s(FM))

ABSTRACT

Background of study: diabetes mellitus is a highly prevalent disease in Iraq. Achieving glycemic control isthe main goal of treatment. Narratives about diabetes mellitus are deeply embedded and widely spread amongcommunities, most of them are not true and interfere with proper management, these narratives mainly affect theself-management practice and lead to negative outcomes.[1] Myths and misconception need to be investigatedthoroughly and examined properly to unveil them and change the mindset of the mostly affected group to thecorrect thinking about the disease and its management. Aim of the study: this study aims to: 1-explore the mostfrequent misconceptions related to the treatment and diet of diabetes mellitus among the patients. 2-Assessthe level of misconception prevalence. 3- examine the relationship between misconception level and sociodemographiccharacteristics and disease related information .Method: a cross-sectional study that employedconvenient sampling and using structured questionnaire. The study was conducted among 400 participants whowere attending to the tertiary endocrine center in Al-Nasiriyah city, Iraq. The study extended for about twomonths period from 28th April till 10th July .Frequencies, Chi-square, and ANOVA tests were used toanalyze the results.Results: the study showed that, the highest percentage of treatment related misconception was62.5%,it was about the side effect of diabetes mellitus medications, while the most frequent diet relatedmisconception was 74% it was about the number of meals required by the diabetes mellitus patient. Thelevel of misconceptions was high among 41.25% of the study population. The only significant association foundwas between level of misconception and type of diabetes mellitus as patients with type 1 diabetes are morelikely to have high level of misconception than patients with type 2, with a difference in the mean score ofmisconception of 1.34 and p-value of 0.03. A higher percentage of the type 2 patients 62.8%were in the lowmisconception group. Conclusion: there are many myths and misconceptions related to diabetes mellitusthat are common among the patients and these may interfere with the proper management of the disease.Cooperation between healthcare practitioners and authorities is highly required to educate the patients andchange these misconceptions into the correct ideas.