DOI: 10.36347/sasjm.2022.v08i11.007

Pages: 805-811

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common non-communicable diseases and is the fifth leading cause of death in most developing countries. There is always a need to investigate knowledge, attitude and behavior among diabetic patients to aid in future development of national health programs and techniques for effective prevention. Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude and practice of type II diabetes patients attending tertiary care teaching hospital of western Maharashtra. Material and Methods: This was observational cross sectional study. Patients above 18 years of age, either gender attending outpatient department of general medicine including newly diagnosed and follow up type II diabetes were included by using simple random sampling. Patients not willing to participate, patients who were not physically or psychologically able excluded. Total 275 patients included as per inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Out of total patients 57.82% (159) and 41.18% (116) were males and females respectively. In this study majority of patients were of 51 to 60 years (35.64%) age group followed by 61 to 70 years (28.73%) and 41 to 50 years (24.36%) age group. On analysis we found that though the majority (92.75%) of the patients aware about what diabetes is. Responses on attitude domains were somewhat mixed and 65.81% and 44.72% do not exercise and test blood for sugar regularly. Conclusions: The present study concluded that although type II diabetes patients have good knowledge, attitudes, but they lack in practice which is essential to control diabetes.