Awareness About Role of Life Style In Controlling Diabetes Mellitus Amoung The Visitors In A Tertiary Level Hospital

Abstract

The cross-sectional descriptive study was done from December 2011 to February 2012 to determine the awareness about lifestyle in controlling diabetes mellitus among the visitors of a tertiary level hospital in Dhaka city. The data were collected by face to face interview using a structured questionnaire. The sample size was 306, which was selected randomly from visitors aged 21 years and above. The mean age of the respondents was 42.97 years, of them 53.60% were male and 46.40 % were female. 231 (75.49%) tested their blood for diabetes, of them 84.42% tested within one year; about 51(17%) respondents were diabetic. Of the diabetic 49.02% was suffering for 1-5 years, and 35.29% for more than 5 years; of the 51 diabetic respondents, 90.12% controlled diet, 88.23% did physical exercise, 72.95% took prescribed medicine and 70.55% took all the measures while 9.80% did nothing for management or control of diabetes. Of the respondents, 19.28% had family history of diabetes. Regarding risk factors for developing diabetes 77.45% mentioned excess intake of sweetmeat, 69.28% lack of exercise, 55.23% family history, 53.92% overweight, 49.02% overeating, and 39.54% mentioned about life style change; 46.73% of the respondents did exercise irregularly and 12.09% regularly; 25% of the total respondent controlled diet regularly and 26.47% occasionally; 86.80% opined excess intake of sweetmeat may increase diabetes and 50.00% said excess intake of all food may increase the diabetes. The study revealed that diabetes mellitus is a multi-factorial disease, since several risk factors appear to play contributory role in its prevalence in the community. Hence, a complex mix of interventions is required at multiple levels to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with this condition.