Patient Knowledge About Diabetes: Illness Symptoms, Complications and Preventive Personal Lifestyle Factors

Abstract

Aims Knowledge plays a vital role in making better decisions for treatment. Patients should be educated about the knowledge of the disease. This study aimed to know patient knowledge about diabetes illness symptoms, complications, and preventive personal lifestyle factors. Methods A cross sectional research design was used to know diabetes knowledge among 261 diabetes patients. Descriptive analysis and logistic regression were used to analyze collected data. Results A total 261 respondents were included in this study. 71.26 % were male and 28.74% were females, and their mean age was 30.41 ±7.4 years. About 45.2 % of the respondents earned excellent knowledge ratings. The study concluded that frequent urination (94.6%), increased thirst (86.6%) and slow healing of cuts and wounds (88.5%) were the common symptoms of diabetes. Respondents knew that a family history of diabetes mellitus is the most significant risk factor, followed by being overweight /obesity (89.7%). Most respondents indicated that insulin injection (92%) and avoiding sugary foods (91.6%) were the best ways to control blood sugar. Even though work related to the medical field (p=001) and age (p=0.018) were significantly and positively associated with knowledge, the association of gender, income, level of education, medical field related education, nationality, and marital position with knowledge were not significant. Conclusions Our study findings has confirmed that respondents have good level of knowledge about diabetes mellitus (DM) and the associated risk factors, symptoms and chronic complications. Age and work related to the medical field have displayed a significant association with respondent’s knowledge about risk factors, symptoms and complications of diabetes.