Foot care practices of diabetic patients in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Diabetic foot is a serious complication that causes lower extremity amputations. The aim of this study was to identify the patient’s awareness about risk factors for diabetic foot disease and to explore the knowledge and foot care practices among diabetic patients in a Saudi population. This cross-sectional study was conducted in King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH), King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH), King Fahad Medical City, National Guard Hospital, Military Hospital, and Prince Salman Hospital capital city of Saudi Arabia. Patients were eligible if they had diabetes foot disease, signed the consent form, and completed the questionnaire. We selected 350 patients from different hospitals between November-2011 and April-2012. The majority of patients (68%) were selected from King Saud University hospitals. The mean age of patients was 50.87 ± 15.9 years with a range of 20–90 years. The majority of patients were male (64.3%) and had a family history of hypertension (55.4%), high total cholesterol (58.6%), and other diabetes (58.9%). A family history of smoking, a major risk factor for diabetic foot, was found in 20.3% of cases. Sixty percent of the patients were using oral medications, 27.1% were using insulin therapy, 10% were using both oral and insulin therapies, and 10% were on diet. In our study, 19.4% of participants were illiterate while 80.6% had a high school or university level education. Our findings also revealed that some patients had a lack of knowledge concerning diabetic foot disease and future complications. Patients are unaware of the risk factors for diabetes foot and practice poor foot care. Awareness programs should be mandatory in all hospitals and diabetes clinics to help compensate for the lack of awareness and lack of podiatric educational services. Such programs may decrease the risk of diabetes foot disease.

Assessment of Knowledge toward Complications of Diabetic Septic Foot among Diabetics Patients in Saudi Arabia

“…Accordingly, the educational level was significantly associated with good knowledge and impacts the care of the diabetic foot injury (17) . Other results were constituent with our results where the most proper knowledge was found among the most educated subjects (4,22,23) .…”

“…Also, the present study showed that more than 25% of adult populations were suffering from diabetes and this rate was supposed to be doubled (3) . Diabetic foot also represented a major health problem of high mortality and morbidity rates (4) . Also, diabetic foot prevalence was 8-17% among diabetic patients with higher rates of amputations caused by diabetes than other causes including foot ulcers and non-traumatic causes (5,6) .…”

The Level of Awareness of Diabetic Foot Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2dm) in Alahsa, Saudi Arabia.

“…the educational level (p=0,001) and household income (p=0,001) of the participants had shown an impact on patients' knowledge about diabetic foot injury .The results of our study exposed that the most educated patients are the most knowledgeable about diabetic foot injuries, which come in consistence with the results of other studies. [3,6] The majority (57,8%) of responders were on oral hypoglycemic drugs alone or in combination with insulin (21,7%). A smaller number (15,0%) were on insulin therapy alone.…”

“…Annually around 3.2 million deaths in the world occurs as result of Diabetes mellitus complications. (3)(4) 20 percent of diabetic hospitalizations are attributed to diabetic foot problems. The risk of lower limb amputation is found to be 10 to 15 times higher among diabetic patients compared with non-diabetics.…”

Autoamputation of diabetic toe with dry gangrene: a myth or a fact?

“… 19 Another hospital-based, cross-sectional study conducted in Saudi Arabia by Odhayani et al showed that having little or no knowledge about the risk factors, future complications, and foot care in diabetes worsen the condition. 20 …”