Knowledge and practice of self-care management of persons with type ii diabetes at a health centre in east trinidad
International Journal of Development Research
Knowledge and practice of self-care management of persons with type ii diabetes at a health centre in east trinidad
Received 14th June, 2017; Received in revised form 14th July, 2017; Accepted 07th August, 2017; Published online 30th September, 2017
Copyright ©2017, Onuoha et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Aim: The study was to determine the levels of knowledge and practice of self-care management of patients with type11 diabetes at Manzanilla Clinic in East Trinidad. Methods: A quantitative descriptive study was undertaken, using all attendees to the health center on a 5-week period. A researchers’-structured Likert-like questionnaire was developed and pretested for the study. Although 88 attendees were targeted, only 66 consented and therefore were recruited for the study. Data was analyzed with SPSS programme version 20. It was presented as frequencies in tables. Result: Results show that the clinic attendees are mostly literate, of Hindi and Christian faiths, with moderate to high level of knowledge on glucose monitoring test, medication compliance, and foot care. This knowledge is however not commensurate with the proficiency of self-care among the participants. Discussion: The result was discussed in relation to literature. The implication of the result was also presented particularly on the focus of health education strategies. Conclusion: Although the respondents showed sufficient knowledge (moderate to high levels), this seeming high knowledge does not reflect in the expected expert level proficiency of practice.
