Publication:

Self-care practices among known type 2 diabetic patients in Haldwani, India: a community based cross-sectional study

Background The prevalence of diabetes worldwide is expected to rise to 9.9% by 2045 and with this rising prevalence raises the need for good self-care practices by patients themselves, which play a key role in effective management and prevention of complications.

Methods Present community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 168 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients by interviewing them using a structured questionnaire assessing their self-care practices using summary of diabetes self-care activities (SDSCA) scale. Different domains were diet, exercise, blood glucose monitoring, medication compliance, foot care and smoking and responses were graded according to number of days in previous week a particular self-care activity of a domain was followed. Data analysis was done with help of SPSS version 21.

Results Mean age of diabetic patients in this study subjects was 54.37±13.24 years. 43.45% respondents have poor self-care practice scores. Bivariate analysis showed that self-care practices were significantly poorer among the diabetic patients less than 60 years of age, residing in rural area, either illiterate or studied till primary/intermediate, had diabetes for less than a year and were taking treatment from public health facilities. Poor self-care practices were insignificantly related with gender, marital status, occupation, monthly family income, type of family, food habits, hypertension as comorbidity, family history, BMI and mode of diagnosis. Multivariate analysis indicates that age, education and duration of diabetes are significant predictors for self-care practices.

Conclusions Self-care practices among diabetic patients were poor among 43.45% patients and there is a need for improving them across all assessed domains.