Knowledge on diabetes and its determinants among type 2 diabetic subjects in a low-resource setting: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Knowledge about diabetes is the cornerstone of self-management, which is crucial for diabetes care. Improving patients’ knowledge and self-management toward their condition can achieve better control, delay complications, and improve their quality of life. However, there are great variations in the level of knowledge from population to population and this needs to be explored in different ethnic and sociocultural groups for designing appropriate preventive strategies. Due to lack of adequate studies in Bangladesh, this study aimed at assessing diabetes-related knowledge, its determinants and examined which subgroups of patients have the largest knowledge deficits. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out among 504 study participants with type 2 diabetes in the outpatient clinic of the Bangladesh Institute of Health Sciences (BIHS) hospital, a tertiary care center in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sociodemographic information, anthropometric knowledge about diabetes were collected by semistructured, interviewer-administered questionnaires by the face-to-face interview technique. Respondents who achieved a 50% or higher score from a 16-item diabetic knowledge assessment questionnaire were considered to have good knowledge and their counterparts were considered as possessing poor knowledge about diabetes. Descriptive statistics was used to estimate the prevalence of knowledge. A univariate and multivariate logistic regression was carried out to identify significant factors associated with diabetic knowledge. Results: The participants’ mean age (±SD) was 52 ± 11years; among them, 57.3% were women, 17.1% were illiterate, and 31.5% belonged to a lower-income family. About one-third of them (29.2%) had good knowledge, and male participants were more educated and had higher diabetes knowledge compared with their counterparts. In particular, gender, education, occupation, monthly family income, and duration of diabetes showed a significant correlation with overall knowledge. On multivariate regression, age, education, duration of diabetes, and family members correlated independently with knowledge. Conclusions: On the basis of the current study, it is suggested that about two-third of the patients attending a tertiary care hospital had poor knowledge about diabetes. These results highlight the need for a coordinated educational program with a prioritized focus on older, newly diagnosed, and less educated groups, which reinforces the necessity for patient education.

Keywords

• bangladesh
• diabetes knowledge
• education
• risk factors
• training