PATIENT KNOWLEDGE OF DIABETES – IS THERE A NEED TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THE PATIENT?

Abstract

Incidence of diabetes mellitus is increasing throughout the globe, but the same can’t be true regarding the knowledge regarding this disease. Lot of misconceptions regarding diabetes persists in the diabetic population. This questionnaire based study was conducted to quantify these misconceptions regarding this disease in diabetics. A total 345 type 2 diabetic patients visiting an endocrinologist in north India were given a questionnaire with 10 questions while waiting for the consultation. These 10 questions could be grouped into 3 groups, with respect to, the knowledge of increasing incidence of diabetes, lifestyle change in diabetes and insulin therapy in diabetes. Major misconceptions were found in the group of questions related to the insulin therapy followed by the questions related to lifestyle changes. Thus it is concluded that counselling, imparting disease knowledge and answering to the patient queries should also be given equal importance as the pharmacological therapy of diabetes.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Questionnaire, Disease Knowledge.