Publication:

Knowledge about risk factors of diabetes mellitus type 2 among government school teachers in rural area of Haryana

Background Teachers are persons responsible for children in school, so they should have adequate information and good level of awareness about diabetes as they can play an important role in decreasing the risk of type 2 diabetes in children. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge about risk factors of diabetes mellitus type 2 among government school teachers.

Methods It was a cross-sectional study. 115 school teachers from five Government schools of district Hisar, Haryana were selected for the study. Data was collected using a predesigned and pretested structured questionnaire. The knowledge scale required the respondents to rate each item as either “yes”, “no”, or “don’t know”. Statistical analysis was done using percentages.

Results A substantial number of the respondents were aware of the common risk factors of diabetes like lack of regular exercise (90.4%), sedentary lifestyle (88.7%), family history of diabetes (79.1%), fast food/soft drinks (78.3%), increasing age (75.7%) and overweight (70.4%). Besides, there was a lack of awareness of low birth weight (33.9%), hypertension (22.6%), oily food (20.9%) high cholesterol level (18.2%), smoking (17.3%) and gestational diabetes (14.8%) as risk factors contributing to the development of diabetes.

Conclusions Lack of awareness was found regarding certain risk factors among the teachers. There is a need for establishing teaching programs to educate teachers and update their knowledge about diabetes and its risk factors.