Evaluation of the Level of Knowledge in type 1 Diabetic Patients & Their Families

F. R. AL-Auqbi, Tawfeeq; R. Amarrej, Husham; Abdul Wahab, Yasmin

	Evaluation of the Level of Knowledge in type 1 Diabetic Patients & Their Families
IRAQI JOURNALOF COMMUNITY MEDICINE
Article 1, Volume 19, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 113-117
Authors
Tawfeeq F. R. AL-Auqbi; Husham R. Amarrej; Yasmin Abdul Wahab
Abstract
Abstract: Introduction: type 1 diabetes mellitus is the most common chronic metabolic disease in childhood. Diabetics and their families have to learn wide varieties of technical and cognitive skills to maintain good glycemic control. Glycemic control and diabetic complications mainly depend on quality and intensity of diabetic education of the patients and their families. Objectives: To asses the levels of diabetic knowledge and its relation to the levels of metabolic control among diabetic children and their families. Method: A cross-sectional study for100 type 1 diabetic children and their families randomly chosen from the patients attending National Diabetes Center /Al-Mustansiriya University (NDC) for a six months period. Evaluation of the diabetic knowledge levels has been done by using validated questionnaire formed of 20 questions. Answers of the questionnaire scored and the scores were divided into 3 groups of low, medium and high levels of knowledge. The levels of knowledge were correlated with sex, age, height and weight centiles, duration of the disease, frequency of acute complications, level of HbA1C, frequency of medical visits and frequency of testing blood glucose estimations. Results: The 100 questionnaires form filled by the diabetic patients and their families classified as low 11%, medium 56% and high levels 33% of knowledge about diabetes and male /female ratio was 1.7/1. The relations between levels of knowledge were correlated with duration of the disease, growth centiles (height and weight for age), level of HbA1c, frequency of the acute complications, frequency of medical visits and frequency of testing blood glucose. The level of knowledge had a significant relation to sex, HbA1c, frequency of visits and frequency of testing blood glucose but no significant relation to age, duration of diabetes. Conclusions: This study emphasized two main facts which were the presence of considerable poor glycemic control among diabetic children and significant relation between the level of knowledge about diabetes and the glycemic control. Key words: type 1 diabetes mellitus, level of knowledge.
Keywords
Type; level of knowledge

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