Kalayou K Berhe, Haftu B Gebru, Hailemariam B Kahsay and Alemseged A Kahsay
Background: Poor patient understanding of diabetes is believed to impede appropriate self-care management, thus accelerating cardiovascular complications, stroke, and kidney failure.
Objective: To assess diabetes knowledge level and associated factors among type 2 diabetic patients in Mekelle hospital and Ayder referral hospitals, Mekelle City, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.
Method: Institutional based cross sectional method was used and 310 study subjects was selected using systematic random sampling technique and the data was collected using interviewer administered structured questionnaire. Scoring method was employed to classify respondents’ knowledge level.
Result: A total of 310 male and female adult type 2 diabetic patients were interviewed from the total of about 1000 diabetes patients who have regular follow up in the hospitals using standardized structured questionnaire and the response rate was 96.8%. This study analyzed respondents’ diabetes knowledge level and of the total only 44.0% of the respondents scored ‘good’ on the total diabetes knowledge questions. This result showed that there was significant association between diabetes family history and diabetes knowledge level [P<0.025, AOR (95% CI)=1.860 (1.077-3.209)].
Conclusion: Despite the important role of diabetes knowledge were recognized to be useful and effective in achieving diabetes control and preventing its serious complication, findings of this study confirm previous findings concerning the diabetes knowledge level. Generally diabetes knowledge level was suboptimal among type 2 diabetic patients in Ayder referral hospital endocrinology and Mekelle hospital chronic care unit.