Assessing Outpatients’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Toward Managing Diabetes in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Introduction: When it comes to non-communicable diseases like diabetes, inadequate knowledge, attitude, and practice are often linked to poor health outcomes. This study aims to assess the patients’ knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of diabetes in the outpatient department of a university teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. Methodology: In this cross-sectional study, diabetes type 2 patients attending outpatient departments at a university teaching hospital, Riyadh, were assessed regarding their knowledge, attitude, and practice toward diabetes using a validated KAP scale. Descriptive and inferential analysis was done to determine the factors associated with KAP score using SPSS version 26.0 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, U.S.). Results: Males made up 69.7% of the sample (n = 165), while 56.9% were between the ages of 41 and 75. The level of knowledge and practice had “good” in 37.6%, and 47.9%, respectively, but level of attitude had “positive” in 30.9% of patients. The association between knowledge tier and gender (p0.014) and insurance status (p0.008), respectively, was shown to be significant. However, the attitude tier was only significantly associated with gender ( P = .003). The practice tier also showed a significant age association ( P = .049). As regards, the mean scores for diabetes-related knowledge were higher only among insured participants ( P = .03) than for other participants’ sociodemographic factors. Meanwhile, the mean attitude scores were also higher among males ( P = .006) than for other sociodemographic characteristics. A comparison of the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics found no statistically significant variations in practice scores. Conclusion: Unfortunately, this study found that outpatient diabetes patients had insufficient knowledge, practice, and a negative attitude toward diabetes type 2. This imposes a great burden on healthcare workers and hence the healthcare system to improve patient scores via diabetes education programs or pharmacist-led patient counseling initiatives.

Diabetic retinopathy awareness in urban and rural population: A structured interview

“…This is clearly seen in the KAP questionnaire results of urban population where 76% have good knowledge of which 63% have good attitude and 65% have good practice towards treatment and prevention of the disease as compared to the rural population where 39%, have knowledge of disease, 37% had good attitude of which 31% have good practice regarding the disease. Similar results were seen in studies by Nithin et al [10] , Wael et al [11] , Sen et al [12] showing the presence of good knowledge to be a factor of good practices and attitude towards the disease. Most of the rural population was unaware of diabetes and its significance on the eyes.…”

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Diabetes Mellitus Among Type 2 Diabetic Patients Attending Primary Health Care Centers in the Jazan Region of Saudi Arabia

“…Other studies have obtained different results regarding knowledge of T2DM. The average knowledge score for DM was good among the participants in Mansy et al's [ 24 ] and Zibran et al’s [ 25 ] studies. Conversely, in India, Srinivasan et al [ 26 ] showed that 58% of their participants lacked adequate knowledge of T2DM.…”

Awareness of Diabetic Patients Regarding Diabetes Complications in Saudi Arabia: Systematic Review

“…According to previous research [26], regular exercise improves fasting blood glucose, plasma insulin levels, glycemic control, and insulin resistance. Badedi et al [27], Al-Aboudi et al [28], and Ismail et al [29] investigated diabetes knowledge and behaviour in three different contexts.…”

“…In three studies [13,15,18], patients' understanding of the importance of controlling blood sugar levels and making lifestyle changes to reduce the incidence of diabetes complexity was painfully low. Patients' levels of education may influence the specificity of diabetic complications they may experience [27][28][29].…”