Knowledge of the diabetic patient about the disease and its impact on treatment

Abstract

Objective: To describe the knowledge of the diabetic patient about his/her disease, the treatment and the impact on the therapeutic adherence. Methods: A qualitative cross-sectional study, with an observational and correlational design, carried out with a convenient sample population of 133 type 2 diabetic patients assisted at a Health Care Centre of Great Porto, Portugal. The hypothesis estimated that there would be a direct relationship between the knowledge about the disease and the adherence to treatment. Results: The diabetic patients presented good knowledge about their illness. The dimension in which they showed greater knowledge was that of “treatment” (M = 0.81). Regarding the dimensions “identity” and “causes”, the patients showed less knowledge (M = 0.51 and M = 0.54, respectively). The results partially confirmed the hypothesis. Although the results indicate that the knowledge and non-knowledge about diabetes are significantly correlated with some behaviors of self care (like the adherence to physical exercise and to glucose test), the hierarchical regression showed that knowledge is the only predictor in behaviours of adherence to glucose testing (sr = 0.31, p = 0.026). Regarding the effect of gender and age, the findings suggest that women show higher non-knowledge about diabetes and the elderly adhere more to diet counselling. Conclusions: Health care professionals should be alert to those areas of knowledge where the diabetic patients showed to be less informed, as well as to some socio-demographic factors such as gender and age, for they may influence in the adherence to different components of treatment.