Assessment of diabetic patients knowledge and comorbidities

Abstract EN

Method : Two hundred sixty-five diabetic patients were evaluated for knowledge in foot care and comorbidities.

The following comorbidities and vitals were documented: retinopathy, vasculopathy, previous foot ulcer, neuropathy, HbA1c level, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, BMI and smoking status.

A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used as a study tool, which was a set of 15 ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions of the knowledge.

A score of more than 70% (11-15) was considered good knowledge; score of 50%-70% (10-8) satisfactory knowledge; less than 50 % (<8) poor knowledge, P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Result: The mean age was 48.7 years and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 32.78.

One hundred sixty-two (61.1%) were males; 210 patients (79.2%) were Bahrainis; 237 (89.4%) were married.

The mean HbA1C was 8.49 ± 1.81.

Two hundred fifty-one (94.7%) had no history of foot ulcer, and 156 (58.9%) patients were not receiving foot care educations.

Ninety-eight (37 %) had a satisfactory knowledge, 54 (20.4%) had good knowledge of diabetic foot care and 113 (42.6%).

Conclusion : The study revealed a marked gap in foot care knowledge among diabetic patients, which reflects the need of an educational interventional program targeting the community.

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