Knowledge Regarding Diabetic Care among Diabetic Patient

Diabetic mellitus is the most common non-communicable disease as well as lifestyle disease which require a multipronged approach for its management, wherein patient has an important role to play in terms of self-care practices. So self-care of diabetes is essential for to control of disease and improvement of quality of patient’s life. This study aimed to assess the knowledge regarding on diabetes care among diabetes patient. This is a cross sectional descriptive study. It included sixty respondents who were diagnosed as diabetes mellitus attending in Medical ward, Medical OPD and Surgical OPD,Western Regional Hospital. Respondents were interviewed using a semi structured questionnaire. The data was collected using non probabilitypurposive sampling technique and analyzed using SPSS 16. The patients’ knowledge about the disease and their diabetes care were the main outcome measures. In this study, patients’ knowledge about diabetes care was satisfactory. More than half (56.7%) of respondents were between 40-60 years age group followed by more than half (51.7%) of female respondents. Majority (73.3%) of the respondents reside in urban area. Less than half (42.6%) of respondents have received primary education. More than half (53.3%) of the respondents had suffered from diabetes duration of 1-3 years. More than half (53.3%) of respondent had no family history of diabetes. Majority (76.7%) of respondents thought that diabetes is controllable disease less than half (35%) of respondents thought that diabetes may cause complication. Most (90%) of respondents received information about diabetes care from health worker/ institution. Knowledge regarding diabetic diet, exercise, oral health, eye care, foot care and blood sugar monitoring of respondents were 61.7%, 15%, 21.7%, 50%, 25%, and 31.7% respectively. The finding revealed that diabetic patent had a satisfactory knowledge on diabetes care. It indicates need of giving proper knowledge to diabetes patients by education. Key words : diabetes, diabetes care, knowledge