Knowledge about type 2 diabetes among visitors of two shopping centers in Upper Silesia, Poland: a survey research performed as a part of social action “Health under Control”

Abstract

Introduction. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a non-infectious epidemic of the 21 st century; therefore, it is essential to focus on prophylaxis, early detection and proper treatment in order to avoid its complications. The aim of this study was to evaluate diabetes-related knowledge among visitors of two shopping centers in Upper Silesia in Poland. The study was conducted by medical students from Medical University of Silesia in cooperation with the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations in Poland under supervision of doctors from the Department of Internal Diseases, Diabetology and Nephrology in Zabrze. Material and methods. People were invited to fulfill a 12-item questionnaire evaluating the basic diabetesrelated knowledge (among others symptoms of hyperglycemia, risk factors, complications and treatment of diabetes mellitus). They had their weight and height measurement performed as well as glycemia measured with the use of glucometer. Results. 401 out of 1500 invited shopping-center visitors agreed to take part in the study (27%) and their mean score of the diabetes knowledge test was 54.7 ± 18.7% of the correct answers. It turned out that there is an association of knowledge about diabetes with person's age and gender-younger people and women had a better knowledge about diabetes. Conclusions. There should be a great attention paid to different forms of education in order to improve the level of diabetes-related knowledge among the general public as a way to improve early diagnosis and a proper treatment.

Knowledge about diabetes mellitus among Polish medical students

“…The low response rate is a wellrecognized limitation of Webbased survey [16], which gives the possibility to reach many different parts of the country as well as bigger number of peo ple that paper surveys, however not every respondent expresses a desire to take part in this kind of research. Similar observations related to low response rate to invitation related to participation in the questionnaire based study come from our previous research related to diabetes knowledge assessment where we examined Polish mountain guides [17] and people from the gene ral community [15].…”

“…In our study there was no significant dif ference between the level of knowledge among men and women. It is worth mentioning that the gap in knowledge related to pointing hypertension as a risk factor of diabetes and weight loss as a symptom of the disease is the same as in general population what we have proven in our previous research [15]. Taking into consideration all students attending medicine course in Poland, our respond rate is estimated to be a couple of percent, which is the main limitation of our study.…”

Evaluation of the quality of life of older people with diabetes

“…Patients did the poorest with blood glucose control. Similar results were obtained by other researchers in their studies which proved that the patient group in question eagerly partake in self-care maintenance behaviours while performing the worst as far as blood glucose control is concerned [40]. Assessing the level of self-care enables pinpointing the deficits exhibited by the patient, and eliminating the deficite.…”