Undergraduate physiotherapy students’ knowledge of Diabetes Mellitus: Implications for education
South African Journal of Physiotherapy
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Undergraduate physiotherapy students’ knowledge of Diabetes Mellitus: Implications for education | |
| Creator | Steyl, T. | |
| Description | Diabetes mellitus is a growing public health concern and its prevalence is escalating exponentially, with a high frequency of morbidity, premature mortality, disability and loss of productivity. Since health education has become an important part of medical care physiotherapy students are potentially well suited to assist with the combat of this disease. The study aimed to determine the knowledge of diabetes mellitus and its risk factors of undergraduate physiotherapy students in the Western Cape. The study incorporated a quantitative, cross-sectional design. Three hundred and thirty eight (338) students completed the structured, self-administered questionnaire consisting of three sections, namely socio-demographic information, diabetes mellitus risk factors and the validated 24-item diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire (dKQ-24). Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed and the alpha level was set at p 0.05. overall, 60.7% of the study sample had adequate knowledge of diabetes mellitus (≥ 75% correct answers), while 32.5% and 6.8% had marginal (≥60 ≤ 74% correct answers) and inadequate knowledge (59% correct answers) respectively. Seven of the nine diabetes mellitus risk factors could readily be identified by 89.7% of the participants. Smoking (64.8%) and high blood pressure (69.0%) were not readily identified as common diabetes mellitus risk factors. Significant associations with diabetes risk factors were found for gender and year of study. The study has reinforced the need for continuous education of physiotherapy students regarding diabetes mellitus and its risk factors, as inadequate knowledge of diabetes mellitus could influence the effectiveness of patient education and therefore have dangerous consequences for the patient diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2011-01-06 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/sajp.v67i3.48 | |
| Source | South African Journal of Physiotherapy; Vol 67, No 3 (2011); 9-14 2410-8219 0379-6175 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/48/46
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