A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE AMONG PATIENTS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Diabetes mellitus is emerging as a major health problem in India; it is affecting all class of society with varied clinical manifestation. Increasing awareness about the disease is very important to prevent the epidemic manifestation of diabetes. METHODOLOGY: A cross sectional study with 120 respondents conducted over a period of 6 months to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data. RESULTS: The study revealed that the awareness of patients regarding the definition and the causation was poor. 61% patients were not aware of the common symptoms of the disease and less than 20% knew about the complications. Medications (73.33%) were the main method of control of diabetes followed by dietary changes (62.5%) and exercises (60.8%). Screening for complication was also very less; only 14.16% of the participants have ever undergone checkups to look for complications. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed that the knowledge among majority of the respondents was poor. The attitude and practices towards prevention and control of diabetes was not satisfactory. There is a need for regular conduct of awareness programmes to improve attitude and practices of diabetic patients to promote better compliance towards diet, exercise and medications.