Self-Management Knowledge among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Hospital Taiping, Malaysia

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is characterised by hyperglycaemia resulting from insulin insufficiency, insulin resistance or both. Although different anti-diabetic agents are available to control blood glucose, patient self-management is essential for achieving good glycaemic control. Good knowledge of disease self-management is a pre-requisite to enable patients in making informed decisions in disease management. In this study, we aimed to determine the knowledge of self-management among patients with T2DM visiting outpatient pharmacy at Hospital Taiping. Adult patients with T2DM were invited to participate in a survey from December 2018 to February 2019. A pre-validated, selfadministered questionnaire was used to capture patients’ demographics, glucose level and diabetes self-management knowledge. A total of 148 patients responded to the survey. More than half of the patients (54.7%) in this study were found to have low knowledge scores (< 70%). The level of education (p = 0.041), occupation (p = 0.024) and the use of insulin (p < 0.001) were significantly associated with patients’ level of self-management knowledge whereas no significant relationships were found between knowledge score across age, gender, ethnicity, living status, use of oral anti-diabetic agents, attending diabetes education before and the duration of diabetes. A low but significant negative correlation was found between the score of self-management knowledge and fasting blood glucose (r = −0.264, p = 0.002). Despite the fact that nearly half of the respondents had good knowledge scores, the knowledge gaps remain to be filled s o t hat p atients are empowered to practise self-management in managing their T2DM.