Community With Diabetes-related Knowledge And Influence Factors Among And Health Education

[Objective]The best method of control of diabetes mellitus(DM) and proventing further complications is to provide patients with necessary information about DM and educating them. The aim of this study was to investigate the awareness of DM and the related factors of diabetics.[Methods]This cross-sectional study was conducted in two community health stations of Shui-guohu community health center between July and September in 2006. The targets were those who had been diagnosed with DM and had registered in the health stations. By ways of lectures and telephone to invite the diabetics to the health stations, 135 diabetics participated in the study in which a face-to-face interview was conducted to fill in a questionnaire followed by eye examination and fasting blood glucoselevel testing. Chi-square test and analysis of variance were performed to investigate the relationships between factors.[Results]Statistical analysis has shown that mean age of respondents was 57.5±7.8 years and majority were female (63%) and older onset DM (＞90%). Mean duration of DM was 6.8±5.5 years. Only 37% of patients have had informed about DM. The main information resource was found to be hospitals 65.5%, then media 19.2%,community health care centers 5.6%,other diabetics(4.5%) and others 0.7%. Patients who received more education, who were younger and who have had prior eye examination were more likely to have informed about DM than the other groups.[Conclusion]Awareness of DM amongst community diabetics is very low and mainly determined by their education levels. The community health care centers play a very small role in dissemination of information towards diabetics. Results from this study have implications for patient education efforts. Accurately, clinicians need to strive to improve overall levels of patients' awareness and knowledge of their specific conditions, regardless of their literacy. Many opportunities exist for raising diabetic's awareness of their disease and linking diabetic's growing health awareness with those health promoting behaviors known to reduce morbidity and mortality.