| The purpose of the study was to evaluate carbohydrate knowledge and determine associations between demographic and clinical characteristics and carbohydrate knowledge of adults with type 2 diabetes in an outpatient setting. The Diabetes and Food Questionnaire (DFQ) was used to evaluate carbohydrate knowledge. The five domains in the DFQ were carbohydrate food recognition, carbohydrate choices in foods, carbohydrate choice equivalents, blood sugar management and carbohydrate counting for meal planning. The cross-sectional study included 51 participants with type 2 diabetes. The majority of participants were middle-aged (mdn 56, IQR: 47,64), Non-Hispanic black (67%) and female (63%). A median total DFQ score of 17 (14,19) out of 38 indicated poor carbohydrate knowledge. The majority of participants were able to correctly answer questions around carbohydrate food recognition (60% of the questions answered correctly) and blood sugar management (77% of participants correctly answered). In each of the remaining three domains, participants answered less than 20% of the questions correctly. There were no relevant associations between demographic or clinical characteristics and carbohydrate knowledge. The DFQ may be a useful tool for evaluating carbohydrate knowledge in an outpatient setting. Further data collection is needed with a larger sample size to conduct further analyses on carbohydrate knowledge in a resource limited population. |
