Coverage of Diabetes Mellitus Prevention and Management in Nigerian Newspapers

Abstract

This work analysed the coverage of diabetes prevention and management in Nigerian newspapers, taking into cognisance the negative impact and the enormity of diabetes challenges in the country. The objectives were to: find out the frequency of coverage of Diabetes Mellitus in Nigerian newspapers; determine the prominence given to the coverage of prevention and management vis-à-vis other information on the disease; find out the depth given to stories on prevention and management of Diabetes Mellitus and other information about the disease; find out aspects of the contents of Diabetes Mellitus reported by The Nation, This Day, Punch and The Guardian newspapers; ascertain the sources of information relied upon by The Nation, This Day, Guardian and Punch newspapers on the prevention and management as well as other information on the disease.; examine the level of exposure of Port Harcourt Residents’ to diabetes mellitus health messages in the newspapers . The work was anchored on the Health belief model, Development Media and the Social responsibility theories. The content analysis method was used and code sheet was used as instrument for data collection. The population for content analysis was 1488 , the purposive sampling technique was used to select newspapers that published only diabetes stories. Findings revealed that The Nation, This Day, Guardian and Punch did not report diabetes prevention and management stories frequently and did not give prominence to items of diabetes mellitus. The researchers recommended that newspapers in Nigeria should play their role by exposing the people to dangers of diabetes, also by reporting diabetes prevention and management methods. That the government should develop diabetes prevention and management communication plan as they have done for HIV/AIDs and COVID19.