Assessment of the level of knowledge about diabetes mellitus among diabetic patients: A cross-sectional study from Nepal

Background:   Diabetes mellitus is a chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) often associated with poor psychosocial and health outcomes. Available evidence suggests that patients’ knowledge about the disease is fundamental to its treatment and prevention or delaying of complications. Therefore, this study assessed the level of knowledge of diabetes patients on diabetes mellitus and its associated factors.  Methods:   A descriptive cross-sectional study using a translated Nepalese version of the revised Michigan Diabetes Knowledge Scale was conducted among randomly selected patients with diabetes mellitus presenting to the outpatient department (OPD) of Madhyabindu Hospital, Nepal. Data were collected via an interviewer administered questionnaire and analyzed with MS Excel 2016 and IBM SPSS version 25 software.  Results:   Among the 360 participants, 27.2% had good knowledge of diabetes and 72.8% had poor knowledge. Age, level of education, occupation, family history of diabetes, duration of the disease, presence of comorbidity, complications and body mass index (BMI) were significantly associated with knowledge of diabetes mellitus (p-value ≤ 0.05).  Conclusions:   Based on the study findings, it is important that diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) programs should be implemented and/or strengthened at the Madhyabindu Hospital and targeted communities to improve diabetes patient’s knowledge on their disease condition and self-care practices.