DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i11.030

Pages: 4459-4462

Diabetes mellitus is a major health concern of the developing nations and accounts for the 5% deaths around the world annually. Insulin is refused by many patients of diabetes mellitus even when they require this modality of treatment. However, some patients accept insulin eventually. This study explores the factors determining insulin therapy acceptance and the initial barriers to its use among the type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. In this cross-sectional qualitative study, one hundred and fifty four patients of T2DM attending the Medicine outdoor of a tertiary care hospital were included. The patients were interviewed as per a semi structured questionnaire on the Likert’s scale and the collected data was analysed statistically. One hundred and fifty-four patients were included in this study: 80 (51.9%) female and 74 (48.1%) male. 43.5% patients considered that insulin was a drug of last resort. Among all patients, 23.4% thought that insulin lowered blood glucose levels to an extreme degree and 53.9% disagreed. The patients thought that self-injection was difficult (59.1%), required someone else to administer the injection (20.8%), insulin injection was painful (48.7%). 81.8% stated that their consultants had sufficiently informed them about the necessity of insulin. Our most significant finding is that a lack of adequate information relating to insulin appears to be the major factor behind the patients’ refusal of insulin treatment. The fact that patients consider insulin treatment as a final solution to DM could be related to resistance to the initiation of insulin therapy. The diabetic patients’ awareness of insulin and education of diabetes treatment are crucial in the treatment and follow-up of patients with diabetes mellitus.